Sitting of 25 February 1915

Preamble
The House met at a Quarter before Three of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
Private Bills (Standing Orders not previously inquired into not complied with),—Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bill, referred on the Second Reading thereof, the Standing Orders have not been complied with, namely:—
Worksop and Bawtry Railway Bill.
Ordered, That the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.
River Glen Improvement Bill,
To be read a second time upon Thursday next.
London County Council (General Powers) Bill (Suspended Bill), (by Order),
Glasgow Corporation (Celluloid) Bill (Suspended Bill) (by Order),
Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.
Metropolitan Water Board Bill (by Order),
Second Reading deferred till Thursday next.

Ordered, "That Mr. Ellis Griffith be added to the Select Committee on Divorce Bills."—[Mr. Gulland.]
NAVAL AND MILITARY OPERATIONS AND OTHER EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR. 1914–15 (SUPPLEMENTARY VOTE OF CREDIT).
Supplementary Estimate presented of the sum required to be voted for Naval and Military Operations and other Expenditure arising out of the War [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 134.]
NAVY AND ARMY SERVICES, WAR LIKE OPERATIONS, AND OTHER EXPENDITURE ARISING OUT OF THE WAR, 1915–16 (VOTE OF CREDIT).
Estimate presented of the sum required to be voted for Navy and Army Services, Warlike Operations, and other Expenditure arising out of the War [by Command]; referred to the Committee of Supply, and to be printed. [No. 135.]
NATIONAL DEBT (MILITARY SAVINGS BANKS).
Account presented of the Gross Amount of all Moneys received and paid by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt on account of the Fund for Military Savings Banks, from 19th September, 1845, to 5th January, 1915 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 136.]

NATIONAL INSURANCE ACT.
Copy presented of Regulations dated 23rd February, 1915, made by the Insurance Commissioners, entitled the National Health Insurance (Deposit Contributors' Administration Expenses) Regulations, 1915 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 137.]
Copy presented of Account of the Unemployment Fund established pursuant to Section 92 (1) of The National Insurance Act, 1911, Part II., showing the Receipts and Payments during the period 15th July, 1912, to 12th July. 1913, together with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed [No. 138.]

BANKRUPTCY COURTS (IRELAND).
Annual Returns presented of the Official Assignee of the King's Bench Division in Bankruptcy in Ireland and the Local Courts, Belfast and Cork, for the, year 1914 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
COMMITTALS (IRELAND).
Copy presented of Returns from the Clerks of the Crown and Peace of the number of persons committed for trial in 1914 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCE DURE (SCOTLAND). ACT, 1899.
Copy presented of Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, under Section 2 of The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, that they are of opinion (1) that the provisions of Clauses 4 and 5 of the Caledonian Railway Order are of such a character and raise such questions of policy and principle that they ought to be dealt with by Private Bill and not by Provisional Order; (2) that, save as aforesaid, the Provisional Orders be allowed to proceed, subject to such recommendations as they may hereafter make with respect to the several Orders [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
LIGHT RAILWAYS ACTS, 1896 AND 1912.
Copy presented of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade, entitled The London and North-Western Railway (Dyserth and Newmarket Light Railway) Order, 1915 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
POLLING DISTRICTS (COUNTY BOROUGH OF PLYMOUTH).
Copy presented of Orders made by the Council of the county borough of Plymouth dividing the Parliamentary boroughs of Devonport and Plymouth into polling districts [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

SHOPS ACT, 1912.
Copies presented of Orders made by the Councils of the under-mentioned local authorities, and confirmed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department:

County Palatine of Chester (urban districts of Ashton-upon-Mersey and Sale;

City of Exeter;

Counties of Devon (urban district of Exmouth) and Essex (urban district of Grays Thurrock)

[by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES, INDUSTRIAL AND PROVIDENT SOCIETIES, BUILDING SOCIETIES, TRADE UNIONS, &c.
Paper laid upon the Table by the Clerk of the House: Reports of the Chief Registrar for the year ending 31st December, 1914 [by Act]; to be printed [No. 139].
NEW MEMBER SWORN.
Commander Carlyon Wilfroy Bellairs, for the Borough of Maidstone.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  WAR.

    RUSSIA AND CONSTANTINOPLE.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can inform Parliament if the recent statement of M. Sazonof in the Duma to the effect that Russia intended permanently to occupy Constantinople was made with the approval and knowledge of His Majesty's Government?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. Grey): I have not seen, and cannot find in any report of M. Sazonof's speech that I have seen, the statement attributed to him by the hon. Member. The statement which I have seen is that the events on the Russo-Turkish frontier will bring Russia nearer to the realisation of the political and economic problems bound up with the question of Russia's access to the open sea. That is an aspiration with which we are in entire sympathy. The precise form in which it will be realised will no doubt be settled in the terms of peace.

    GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND RUSSIA.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact which he made known to the House of Commons on the 3rd August last, namely, that he did not know the

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    terms of the Franco-Russian Alliance, he is willing to make a further statement as to the grounds upon which he refrained from communicating to the French Government the information that France would not be invaded by Germany if her neutrality were guaranteed by Great Britain?
    Sir E. GREY: If the hon. Gentleman will refer to No. 105 in the British White Paper—the last two sentences of the main paragraph—he will see that, though His Majesty's Government did not know the terms of the Franco-Russian alliance, they did know that the French Government could not contemplate an attitude of neutrality in the event of Russia being attacked by Germany as well as by Austria. The French Government had in fact already stated in advance on 30th July that the proposal actually made by the German Government two days later would be wholly inadmissible. But apart from that I thought it was a matter of common knowledge that these European alliances, whether dual or triple, entailed an obligation on the part of one Power to assist the other, certainly if attacked by two Powers.
    Mr. JOWETTasked the Prime Minister if the opinion recently expressed by the First Lord of the Admiralty to a "Matin" interviewer, to the effect that should France and Russia withdraw from participation in the European War Great Britain would fight to the bitter end, was published with the authority and sanction of His Majesty's Government?
    The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Asquith): My right hon. Friend specially stated in the interview that he could not conceive that such a contingency could arise, and I am in absolute agreement with him. I see no reason to differ from the views he expressed in the interview.

    ARMY CONSCRIPTS (FRANCE).
    Sir PHILIP MAGNUSasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Gaston Veitch, born at Bayonne in 1896 and now at school at York, the son of Eng-
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    lish parents, his father having been British Consul at Réunion, is liable to be called up as a conscript in the French Army, and has received a summons to return to France this month; and whether he is eligible to join, as he now wishes, the English Army, for which he has been for some time in training?
    Sir E. GREY: The case referred to has not been brought to my notice, but if the facts are represented to me I shall be happy to consider whether His Majesty's Government could properly take any action in the matter.

    POOR LAW UNION CONTRACTS (IRELAND).
    Mr. JAMES O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether he is aware of the commercial embarrassments that have resulted from the War to eon-tractors to Poor Law unions in Ireland, especially in relation to flour and bread contracts, owing to the rise in the price of bread-stuffs; whether the Local Government Board in Ireland will empower the boards of guardians to terminate flour and bread contracts at the end of the half-year 31st March, instead of the end of the year 30th September, or else allow boards of guardians to give the contractors something over contract prices and thus save them from commercial ruin; and whether he is aware that boards of guardians in Ireland are willing to adopt either course towards their contractors if permission is given them by the Local Government Board?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Harry Verney): The Local Government Board are aware that there has been considerable fluctuation in the prices of commodities since the outbreak of the War. In cases where they have been asked to allow boards of guardians to terminate contracts they have replied that, as regards contracts entered into before the War, they would raise no objection to the guardians making up to the contractor any loss which he may have sustained by the outbreak of the War. As regards contracts entered into since the War began, the Board have stated that they could not assent to any departure from the terms of such contracts.

    LONDON FAIR OF COMMERCE.
    Mr. BOLANDasked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture (Ireland) what steps, if any, have been taken to secure a representation of Irish manufacturers at the forthcoming fair in London organised by the Board of Trade; and whether the Irish doll and other industries which have been started in Ireland since; the outbreak of War to take the place of products hitherto imported from Germany and Austria will be suitably displayed under the direction of the Department or otherwise?
    Sir H. VERNEY: The Department are furnishing the Irish Press with all the information in their possession as to the scope and objects of the proposed fair. They hope in this and in other ways to bring the project to the notice of Irish manufacturers. The question as to such further co-operation as may be open to the Department is under consideration, but the present state of the Department's funds precludes the idea of action which would involve expenditure from that source.

    TRANSFERENCE OF SHIP'S STEW ARDS (INTERNATIONAL NAVI GATION COMPANY).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now state the nature of the reply of the International Navigation Company with regard to their action in engaging eighty-eight extra men in the stewards' department on board the ss. "Lapland," to be transferred at New York to the ss. "Kroonland", and whether he is aware that, as the latter ship is under the American flag, the transference of these men amounted to an importation of labour, which is prohibited in the United States of America?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Robertson): The International Navigation Company have informed me that as the "Kroonland" required additional stewards at New York they sent spare men from Liverpool by the ss. "Lapland" belonging to the same line, and that these men will be returned in due course. The question whether the transfer of these men to the ss. "Kroonland" would be contrary to United States law is one for the United States authorities to consider.

    FOOD SUPPLIES.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the-President of the Board of Trade whether he has any official information showing that there was an increase on the granary stocks on 1st September of 1,450,000 quarters, and that millers have laid in an extra million quarters and are unusually well stocked at the mill; and, if so, whether he will address a circular to the trade indicating that such a course is in contravention of the Act against withholding food supplies, directing, under threat of proceedings,, that such withheld supplies be at once placed on the market, and warning millers against such practices in future?
    Sir H. VERNEY: From the returns collected periodically by the Board of all stocks held in the United Kingdom, it appears that the quantity held in port granaries on the 1st February was about 4 percent, less than on the 1st September. Stocks held by millers were rather more on the 1st February than on the 1st September, but slightly less than on the 1st January. The Board are keeping the whole position under close observation, and there is no reason to believe that stocks are being held other than in the normal course of trade.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention had been directed to a monthly report of the Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company, Limited, of Nelson's Wharf, Lambeth, dated 12th February, 1915, in which, after recording large arrivals of frozen meat from New Zealand during the past month, the report states that a distinct improvement in demand for mutton has arisen in the last few weeks, and that as disturbance in freight arrangements is likely to interfere with future supplies some slight restriction has to be placed on the output for the time being; whether he will cause inquiries to be made with all importers of New Zealand frozen, meat and at all London refrigerators, asking for a return of stocks on hand on each of the last four Monday mornings; whether he will direct the attention of all such importers to the Act of Parliament dealing with the withholding of food supplies; and whether, in view of the advancing price of frozen beef, mutton, and lamb, he will fix as a maximum the remunerative

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    price of these goods officially quoted in the "Meat Trades Journal and Times" for Friday, 1st January, 1915?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: My hon. Friend states correctly that the arrivals of frozen meat from New Zealand have increased recently. The imports of refrigerated beef and mutton from all sources were, however, substantially less in January last than in the previous month or in January of last year, and the decrease of import has been continued in February. Some disorganisation of the shipping services between New Zealand and this country has occurred, but this will, I hope, be reduced or removed as a result of the endeavours which are being made to improve the situation. Particulars are already obtained fortnightly regarding stocks of meat in cold stores, and the movement of stocks is being closely watched. I have no doubt that the importers and others interested are already aware of the provisions of the Act to which my hon. Friend refers respecting the withholding of food supplies. No evidence has come to the knowledge of the Board of Trade that there is any such withholding in the case of meat, but if my hon. Friend has any information on the subject I shall be glad to consider it. As at present advised, I do not think that the adoption of the course suggested in the last part of the question would conduce to the desired result.
    Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Prime Minister whether, seeing that the rise in the cost of food amounts to between 20 and 24 per cent., he will consider the advisability of increasing the wages of all Government workmen to the same extent so that their real wages may have the same purchasing power as they had in July, 1914, prior to the outbreak of war?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I cannot accept without reserve the figures given by the hon. Member. The question of an increase in wages to Government workmen in consideration of the rise in juices in the present emergency is receiving the attention of the Government, who are taking the advice of the Arbitration Committee whose appointment was announced on Monday last.
    Mr. C. DUNCAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman know that he will find these figures in his speech in this House a few days ago?
    The PRIME MINISTER: I think not.

    COAL PRICES.
    Mr. ROWLANDSasked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the further rise in the price of household coal; and whether the investigation has taken place and, if so, when may action on the Report be expected?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I am aware that the price of household coal in London has again been raised. A Committee has been appointed to inquire into the causes of the rise in the retail price of coal sold for domestic use, especially to the poorer classes of consumers in London and other centres. The members of the Committee are Mr. Vaughan Nash, as chairman, Professor Ashley, my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, Mr. J. J. Dent, Mr. A. W. Flux, and Mr. Stanley Machin. I cannot at present say when the Committee will complete their inquiries, but they are fully aware of the urgency of the matter.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Has the Committee commenced its sittings yet?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I am not sure if they have yet met.
    Mr. ROWLANDS: Will the Board expedite the sittings at once?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I have stated that the Committee are fully aware of the urgency of the matter.
    Mr. YEO: Is the hon. Gentleman, aware there is a great influx of coal into London just now, and will he take some steps to advise the public not to buy so as to bring the colliery owners to their senses?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: That suggestion no doubt will be considered.

    RAILWAY SERVANTS (BONUS).
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Government have agreed to contribute a proportion of the extra bonus that is to be paid to railway servants; if so, whether the Government were consulted before the actual extra expenditure was decided upon; whether in any such consultation the various grades of servants

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    who were to receive the bonus was a subject of discussion; and whether, seeing that the Board of Trade White Paper 293 gives the average salaries of station-masters and clerks as only about 33s. 8d. a week, he will use what influence he possesses to make these grades participants in the extra bonus?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Under the arrangement between the Government and the railway companies as to the terms of compensation payable to the companies for the use of the railways a portion of the War bonus which the companies have agreed to give to their operating staff will fall to be paid by the Government. The Government were informed by the Railway Executive Committee of the proposed increase, but the amount of the rise and the grades of employés to which it would apply were settled by the companies in conference with the railway trade unions without any interference by the Government. My right hon. Friend proposes to take up the same attitude with regard to any other adjustments of wages that may be under consideration. I am informed that the figures mentioned in the last part of the question refer only to money wages, and do not include the value of such items of remuneration as a station-master's house.

    RAILWAY CONTRACT TICKET HOLDERS.
    Mr. MIDDLEBROOKasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the inconvenience caused to regular travellers on the railway can be lessened by arrangements being made to allow the holders of contract tickets between any two towns to use the trains of any company between those towns other than those of the company issuing the ticket?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I am informed by the Railway Executive Committee that where it has been found necessary to discontinue certain trains, the railway companies have issued instructions with regard to the interavailability of tickets, and if it is found necessary to make further reductions in the train services the companies will see how far such arrangements can be extended.

    BONDED ALCOHOL.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether the Board of Excise do not allow British-made absolute alcohol to be stored in bond for Home consumption; whether dealers must buy it and store it duty paid; whether the duty is 26s. 5d. per gallon; whether prior to the War German spirit could be stored under bond and paid for only when taken out as is done in the case of ordinary wines and spirits; and whether, in view of the difficulties affecting manufacturers in the present crisis and the amounts of money they have to lie out of under the present arrangement, he can see his way to revert to the previous arrangements?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Acland): The law has not been altered since the War began as to absolute alcohol, whether British made or imported, and there has been no withdrawal of any privilege in regard to British-made absolute alcohol. Before the War, very little absolute alcohol, if any, was manufactured in this country, and practically all of it came from Germany and remained in bond until required for use. Since the War none is coming from Germany, but some is being manufactured in this country. Under the law storage duty-free in bond for delivery for home consumption would be allowed in the case of absolute alcohol manufactured by a distiller from duty-free spirit, but not in the case of absolute alcohol manufactured by a rectifier from duty-paid spirit. A certain amount of the last-named spirit is now being made in this country, and in view of this fact, and having regard to the high duty, which may be as much as 26s. 5d. a gallon, the Board of Customs and Excise are considering whether an alteration of the law is justified in order to meet the difficulty indicated in the question.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind the great disability which is being laid on British merchants who are attempting to capture German trade, and will he bring in the necessary legislation as quickly as possible?
    Mr. ACLAND: I cannot, of course, anticipate the recommendations of the Board of Customs or the decision of the Government, but I will do what I can, and if it is decided the matter should be put right by legislation, it shall be done as soon as possible.

    CHILD LABOUR (AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS, SCOTLAND).
    Mr. DENMANasked the Secretary for Scotland whether any school boards in Scotland have pressed for a relaxation of the conditions governing school attendance in order to enable children to enter agricultural employment or have taken any steps to encourage such use of cheap child labour?
    The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Mr. McKinnon Wood): I have received one or two representations to this effect from school boards, but I am not aware of any district in which the conditions governing exemption from school attendance under the age of fourteen have in point of fact been in any way relaxed.

    GERMANY AND BRITISH MERCHANT SHIPS.
    Mr. YERBURGHasked the Prime Minister whether the hospital ship "Asturias" was attacked by the torpedo of a German submarine off Havre on the 25th January, 1915; whether two British merchant ships were torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the North-West coast of France on the 30th January; whether it is now the avowed policy of the German Admiralty to torpedo merchant ships wherever met with in British waters without warning; and whether, in view of the acts which have been committed and the policy now announced, His Majesty's Government will consider the desirability of issuing a Proclamation declaring that the crews of German vessels which may be captured where engaged in operations which contravene the rules of civilised warfare will be treated as criminals and not as prisoners of war?
    The PRIME MINISTER: The facts are correctly stated in the first three parts of the question. As regards the last part, I must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave to the Noble Lord the Member for Portsmouth on 22nd February.

    CIVIL SERVANTS (PAY).
    Sir HENRY CRAIKasked the Secretary to the Treasury whether Civil, servants who have joined the New Army, and who are promoted to be commissioned officers, are deprived of the benefit of receiving their civil pay, less their Army pay, although that benefit is given to all non-commissioned officers and to commissioned officers in the Territorial Army; and, if so, what are the grounds for confining this benefit to Territorial officers?
    Mr. ACLAND: The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative, and the second part therefore does not arise.

    ROYAL DOCKYARDS.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether every painter, including intermediate rates, will receive the increase of 2s. hired and 1s. 6d. established men?
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Dr. Macnamara): Yes, Sir.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked whether the Admiralty allow four days' leave a year with full pay to seamen and stokers employed on dockyard tugs, six days to mates, and eight days to masters; and whether it is the intention of the Admiralty, in the cases of those men whose leave has been stopped since the outbreak of War, to remunerate them as on the occasion of the last August Bank holiday?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The leave allowances for seamen and stokers, masters and mates on dockyard tugs were until recently as stated, but the allowances have recently been increased to the following scale, namely, masters, twelve days; mates, nine days; seamen and stokers, six days. The new allowances are shown in the replies to the petitions, a copy of which has been sent to the hon. Member. Leave of absence in all cases is dependent upon the convenience of the Service, and the yard craft men referred to are by no means the only employés who have not been able to take the leave usually allowed to them.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman sent me a copy of the petitions?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: Yes, Sir, two copies.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I have not received them.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware of the work done by riggers in the Royal dockyards since the War started; that riggers have been called upon to work at all times of the night and expose themselves to all kinds of weather; and whether, in these circumstances, he can see his way to advance their pay by 1s. instead of 6d., which is regarded by riggers generally as a sum not in any way equal to the special work they have been called upon to perform?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The Admiralty are fully acquainted with the good work done by riggers and the circumstances under which the work has been performed. The small increase of pay recently granted, as from 1st October last, makes the uniform rate for riggers equal to the maximum special rate for skilled labourers.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKEasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the wages paid to the 3rd and 4th class women employed on the spinning floor at the Ropery, His Majesty's dockyard, Devonport; whether he is aware that the wages are 15s. and 13s. a week, respectively, and that it takes 10 to 12 years to get an in crease owing to having to wait for a vacancy in the 2nd class; and whether, in view of the increased cost of living and the fact that these women are for the most part widows of sailors who have died at the post of duty, he can see his way to give them a rise of 1s. a week?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The women employed at the Ropery at Devonport dockyard are divided into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class machinists and probationers. The respective rates of pay are 20s., 17s. 6d., 15s., and 13s. per week, but these rates of pay do not represent the actual earnings, as the women are paid on a scheme of prices under which the excess of their earnings over the time rates at present amounts to from 15 to 20 per cent. In accordance with the dockyard regulations, in the engaging of women for employment at the Roperies, preference is given to widows whose husbands have died in the Service and to respectable orphan girls. The probationers are advanced to 3rd class machinists after twelve months' service, or before if proficient. The advancement to 1st and 2nd class machinists is made in
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    vacancies, and as the women in the 1st and 2nd classes usually remain in the Service for long periods, the vacancies occur infrequently, and consequently the advancement from one class to another commonly takes place at intervals of some years. I am afraid that I can give no undertaking in regard to the last part of the question.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: Does not the percentage of wages only come to 15s. a week in the 3rd class?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: The hon. Gentleman can make his own calculation.
    Sir C. KINLOCH-COOKE: I have done so.

    LOSS OF H.M.S. "BULWARK" (OFFICERS' PENSIONS).
    Mr. PERKINSasked the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the scale of officers' pensions to be paid in respect of the loss of the "Bulwark" has now been settled?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: No, Sir. The matter is still under consideration, the present position being that the Admiralty, in conjunction with the War Office, are drawing up a scheme of pensions for the widows and children of officers which it is hoped to transmit for the consideration of the Select Committee at an early date. In the case of the "Bulwark" the pensions are meanwhile being paid under Scale B.

    POLICE PAY (METROPOLIS AND PROVINCES).
    Mr. C. DUNCANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, owing to the War, constables in both Metropolitan and provincial forces are only allowed one day off in fourteen instead of one day off in seven; whether the days so worked accumulate considerably; whether this condition of affairs has brought about a state of great tension and difficulty in the police force at Birkenhead, over 100 men having tendered their resignations out of a strength of 240; and whether, seeing that some watch committees now pay the constables wages for the extra days worked, he can put this method into operation in the Metropolitan Police area, as such plan would prove more acceptable to the constables than allowing time off for the extra days worked?
    The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna): So far as the county and borough police forces are concerned, the matter is one for the local authority to decide. No information has reached me with regard to pension or difficulty at Birkenhead. As regards the Metropolitan Police area, I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave last Monday to the hon. Member for South-West Ham.

    ZYMOTIC DISEASES.
    Sir EDWARD COATESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether all cases coming within the category of zymotic diseases notifiable under Statute to the local sanitary authority and which occur among the troops now undergoing training in the United Kingdom are so notified; whether such cases are removed for treatment to the isolation hospitals of the local authority in whose district they arise or are treated in camp hospital; and, in case the latter course is pursued, what steps are taken to ensure complete and efficient isolation?
    The UNDER-SECRETARY Of STATE for WAR (Mr. Tennant): Yes, Sir, a system of intercommunication exists between the civil medical officers of health and the military sanitary officers. All infectious cases are treated in the local civil isolation hospitals, except in a few cases where local civil accommodation is not available. Such cases are treated in special military isolation hospitals. Arrangemuents have also been made for the erection of pavilions in the grounds of civil isolation hospitals where existing accommodation is insufficient.

    CEREBRO-SPINAL MENINGITIS.
    Sir E. COATESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the cases of cerebro-spinal meningitis among the troops in camp at Reed Hall Camp, Colchester; whether he is aware that men who have been in contact with others who have developed the disease are detained under observation in huts which closely adjoin and are part of a block in which a large number of the troops are housed; and whether he will give directions for
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    these cases to be removed to suitable quarters properly isolated until the full period of quarantine has expired?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am making inquiries into the subject of the hon. Member's question, and will in due course let him know the result.

    QUARTERMASTERS.
    Sir E. COATESasked the Under-Secretary of State for War how many sergeant-majors and quartermaster-sergeants who had retired and were on pension previous to the War, but who on the outbreak of War immediately re-enlisted, has subsequently been appointed to the position of quartermaster to any of the newly-raised regiments, and to act as such during the period of the War?
    Mr. TENNANT: One hundred and five warrant officers and non-commissioned officers who wore on pension and who re-enlisted at the outbreak of War have been appointed temporary quartermasters for the period of the War.

    GERMAN ARMY.
    Sir WILLIAM BULLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War what was the estimate in the last edition of the Handbook of the German Army, published before the War, of the total available trained and untrained men in each category, respectively, of the German Army?
    Mr. TENNANT: The estimate in the last edition of the Handbook of the German Army, published in 1912, of the total available trained and untrained men of the German Army, excluding officers and officials, was as follows:—

    Trained Rank and File, including Reserve and Landwehr

    3,302,000

    Trained Landsturm

    623,000

    One-year Volunteers

    85,000

    Non-Commissioned Officers of peace establishment

    92,000

    Total trained

    4,102,000

    Partially-trained Ersatz Reserve

    113,000

    Untrained Ersatz Reserve and Landsturm

    5,683,000

    Grand total

    9,898,000

    Sir WILLIAM BULLasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the Handbook of the German Army is now only circulated for official use; and, if so, seeing that it was formerly on sale to the public, whether he will arrange for it to be again placed on sale to the public?
    Mr. TENNANT: The Handbook of the German Army, like similar handbooks of other foreign armies, is now only circulated for official use, and it is not considered desirable that any of these handbooks should be placed on sale to the public.

    NAVAL AND MILITARY HOSPITALS (RATES AND TAXES).
    Sir W. BULLasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can see his way to arrange that private houses which are lent for the purpose of naval or military hospitals be free of rates and taxes while so used?
    Mr. ACLAND: Private houses lent for the purposes indicated are relieved entirely from Inhabited House Duty and also from Income Tax, Schedule A, except in so far as it may be deductible from ground rent or other charges. Questions relating to exemption from rates should be addressed to the President of the Local Government Board.
    Mr. HOGGE: Does that apply to the houses let to Belgian refugees?
    Mr. ACLAND: I do not know. Perhaps my hon. Friend will put a question on the Paper.

    TYPHOID FEVER (INOCULATION).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked what is the condition as regards inoculation of the 625 cases of and 49 deaths from typhoid fever amongst the Expeditionary Force from the beginning of August, 1914, to 11th February, 1915, and of the 262 cases of and 47 deaths from typhoid fever amongst the British troops in the United Kingdom from 1st August, 1914, to 31st January, 1915?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am arranging to have the information asked for by my hon. Friend compiled, but as it will take some time to prepare, I will let my hon. Friend know the result as soon as it is ready.

    VACCINATION AND REVACCINATION (TROOPS).
    Mr. WILLIAM THORNEasked what is the condition as regards vaccination and revaccination of the British soldiers who suffered from small-pox in the United Kingdom between 1st August, 1914, and 31st January, 1915?
    Mr. TENNANT: The history of the solitary case of small-pox which has occurred between the dates mentioned in the question is as follows: The soldier referred to who was vaccinated in infancy enlisted on the 10th August last, went into hospital on the 13th August, and was removed to an infection hospital on the following day. Had he not been taken ill so quickly after enlistment, he would have been revaccinated.

    AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS (ENLISTMENT).
    Mr. DENMANasked what proportion of agricultural labourers in England and Wales and Scotland, respectively, have joined His Majesty's forces since the outbreak of War?
    Mr. TENNANT: I regret that this information is not available, and, as it would involve a vast amount of labour to compile I trust my hon. Friend will not press, his question.

    GERMAN EMBASSY (LONDON).
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether any permission has been given to any officer of the late German Embassy in London to spend several days recently in London?
    Mr. TENNANT: Nothing is known of this at the War Office.
    Sir J. D. REES: Has any information reached the War Office to the effect that any civil or military officer answering that description has been in London during the present month?
    Mr. TENNANT: No; I think not.

    PRISONERS OF WAR.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether the condition of the English prisoners

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    recently returned from Germany shows evidence of neglect and ill-treatment; and whether he will consider the limitation of luxuries to German prisoners in this country?
    Mr. TENNANT: The English prisoners recently returned from Germany did not show evidence of neglect and ill-treatment. They stated that they were well treated so long as they were in hospital, but less well in the camps, where their food is stated to have been scanty and unsuited to them. Those who came direct from hospital looked much better fed than those from the camps.
    Sir J. D. REESasked whether it is proposed to exceed the sum of £17,000 already spent in fitting Donington Hall for the confinement of German officer prisoners of war; for how many such officers this house has been fitted at this cost; how many are at present in occupation: and why it was necessary to spend so large a sum for this purpose?
    Mr. TENNANT: As has already been stated in answer to previous questions, the sum of £13,000 only has been expended on this service, including £4,000 for furniture. Accommodation has been provided for 320 German officers and eighty prisoner of war servants. At present 103 prisoner officers and men are in occupation. It was necessary to carry out extensive repairs to the drainage, to install electric light, and also to build quarters for the guard of three officers and 100 men, and for the staff outside the barbed wire fence.
    Sir J. D. REES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the somewhat luxurious treatment of these prisoners of war has caused unfavourable comment in the Eastern Midlands?
    Mr. TENNANT: I believe there is a certain amount of criticism as to the money spent.

    TERRITORIAL FORCE (PROMOTION).
    Mr. KINGasked whether, in cases in which temporary promotions in the Territorial Force are made permanent during or at the end of the War, confirmation of rank can be antedated to the date of temporary promotion, provided that there has been continuous service in the higher rank, in order that officers who
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    have been continuously performing the duties of a higher rank, and who in many cases would have been normally promoted but for the War, may not unnecessarily lose precedence?
    Mr. TENNANT: Confirmation of rank will be dated or antedated to the date on which a vacancy occurred in the permanent peace establishment of the original unit.

    ROYAL FUSILIERS (CITY OF LONDON REGIMENT).
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether the War Office received a full and detailed report from the British Empire Committee connected with the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment) Empire Battalion of certain alleged irregularities in connection with the contract for the equipment of the battalion; whether the report submitted to the War Office reveals the payment of moneys by the equipment contractor to two members of the committee; and what advice did the War Office tender in the matter to the British Empire Committee?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am informed that no such report has been received at the War Office. If the hon. Member has received some information on which he can rely and which he can furnish to me, I shall be glad to make inquiry.
    Mr. HOGGE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that two members of this committee have been retired from the committee on account of having accepted illicit commissions from the contractor and that the contractor is still on the War Office list and has now received a contract in connection with the Crystal Palace?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, I am not aware of that. It is precisely because I was not aware of that that I asked my hon. Friend if he would be so good as to supply me with any information upon which he could rely.
    Mr. NIELD: Did not General Wooll-combe, the General Officer in Command of the Eastern District, receive a detailed report on 30th October last of the investigations of the committee which had sat immediately preceding it?
    Mr. TENNANT: As I have informed the House, the War Office have received no-such report.
    Mr. NIELD: The General Officer of the Eastern Command would be the proper channel, would it not, for anything of that sort to come through?
    Mr. TENNANT: Yes, I quite agree.
    Mr. NIELD: If you make inquiry of General Woollcombe you will find it.
    Mr. HOGGEasked what is the exact position of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London) Empire Battalion and the other service battalions which have been formed since the outbreak of war; whether they are subject to the direct authority of the War Office; and whether the War Office is responsible for the control of the battalions and for the bona fides and efficiency of the contractors to these battalions or whether that responsibility rests with the committees which appealed to the public for funds and are still concerned with the duties of administration?
    Mr. TENNANT: These "local" battalions, of which the battalion in question is one, have been raised by various municipalities and communities and in certain cases by responsible individuals, who have thereby rendered most valuable assistance to the War Office. They are housed, clothed and generally administered by the raisers until such time as they are definitely taken over by the War Office. Until so taken over, the responsibility for the efficiency and bona fides of any contractors who may be employed rests with the raisers. The responsibility for training rests throughout with the military authorities.
    Mr. HOGGE: Have the Royal Fusiliers been taken over by the War Office?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, they have not.

    CANDIDATES FOR COMMISSIONS.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware of the disability laid upon candidates for commissions from the ranks who have received their commanding officers' permission to apply, inasmuch as other commanding officers refuse to take them as officers; and whether the War Office will take steps to prevent this disability being continued?
    Mr. TENNANT: I am not clear as to the class of case to which my hon. Friend refers, and if he will furnish me with particulars of any specific case I shall be glad to inquire into it. So far as temporary commissions are concerned, no such disability as he suggests exists. In the case of commissions in the Special Reserve, it has always been the rule for commanding officers to recommend candidates for their own battalions, and this rule also applies to locally raised battalions.
    Mr. HOGGE: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain how it is that we all get so many letters from men who have applied for commissions stating that the colonel will not sign the application?
    Mr. TENNANT: No, I cannot.

    TRENCH WADERS.
    Mr. SANDERSONasked whether any of the troops of the Expeditionary Force are still required to stand in water in the trenches without being provided with waterproof stockings or trench waders and oilskin coats; and, if so, whether this applies to men who have already suffered from frostbite and who have returned to the trenches?
    Mr. TENNANT: I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which I gave him on the 17th instant. The supplies of water proof stockings or trench waders and oilskin coats which have been dispatched oversea are considered adequate.

    REGIMENTAL AND STAFF OFFICERS (HONOURS).
    Sir COURTENAY WARNERasked if, taking into consideration the perils and hardships regimental officers have had to undergo, and the comparative safety and comfort of the staff officers, the usual practice of distributing the larger proportion of honours and rewards to staff officers may be revised in this War?
    Mr. TENNANT: All relevant considerations, including those mentioned by my hon. Friend are duly weighed in the distribution of rewards for services in war.

    OFFICERS COMMANDING BATTALIONS.
    Sir C. WARNERasked what percentage of the old Regular Army battalions and Cavalry regiments in France are now being commanded by lieutenant-colonels, what percentage by majors, and what percentage by captains; if all these officers commanding battalions are receiving the pay and allowances of lieutenant-colonels in command of battalions; what percentage of companies in these battalions are being commanded by lieutenants; and if the Secretary of State for War will recognise the advisability of giving these officers the rank of the positions they hold?
    Mr. TENNANT: It would require a good deal of laborious investigation to arrive at these percentages, which, moreover, would vary from day to day. I would remind my hon. Friend that the subject was dealt with in the recent Debate on Army Estimates. I then informed the House of certain steps which had been taken in the direction desired by my hon. Friend, and, as I indicated, the whole matter is receiving further consideration.

    WHITE CITY CONTRACT.
    Mr. W. THORNEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that on the termination of the White City contract of Lyons and Company, Limited, the contract was given to Kerr and Company on the nomination of Mr. Imre Kiralfy; if he is aware that Mr. Imre Kiralfy is a close blood relation to Sir Joseph Lyons; and if he will make inquiries into the matter?
    The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. H. Baker): The contract for catering at the White City is now held by Messrs. Kerr and Company, of Glasgow, and in the circumstances I hope that my hon. Friend will not press me to inquire into the personal relationship to which he refers.

    SOLDIERS AND SAILORS (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether the new separation allowances in the case of London are increased by 3s. 6d. a week?
    Mr. BAKER: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. HOGGEasked the Under-Secretary of State for War, whether he will consider paying in full the amount of dependence in all separation allowances without any deduction from the soldier's pay?
    Mr. KEIR HARDIEasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether his attention has been drawn to the irregularities in the allowances made to dependants of soldiers other than wives; whether much of this is due to the varying sums calculated to have been given by a soldier to his dependant before enlisting; and whether he is prepared to recommend that this grievance be abolished by the substitution of an universal value for pre-enlisting dependence and thus remove what is at present a cause of hardship to many dependants and of much work to the pension officers?
    Mr. BAKER: I would remind the hon. Members that these matters were before the Select Committee and that the Government has finally accepted the Committee's recommendations.
    Mr. HOGGE: Will my hon. Friend make it quite clear in any future statement he makes that the soldier himself contributes the allotment which the Government allege they give as a separation allowance?
    Mr. BAKER: I will see that the facts are properly stated.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Will my suggestion as to the substitution of a universal value be the basis?
    Mr. BAKER: No. I understand that has been considered by the Select Committee and rejected.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: When may we expect a decision?
    Mr. BAKER: The decision is contained in the Report.
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether, when a soldier has his pay stopped for default, his dependants also lose their separation allowance for that period; and, if so, whether the War Office will consider the advisability of punishing the soldier only and not his dependants?
    Mr. BAKER: It has been decided that separation allowance in these cases shall continue so long as the soldier remains in the Army.

    FRENCH NOTES (EXCHANGE).
    Sir EDWARD BEAUCHAMPasked whether there are any arrangements by which soldiers when brought to hospitals in this country can exchange with ease, and at a proper rate of exchange, French notes in which they have received their pay; and, if so, whether notices to that effect may be posted up in the wards of the different hospitals?
    Mr. BAKER: Arrangements have been made by which French notes brought by soldiers returning to this country may be exchanged at any Post Office at the rate of 9½d. to the franc. Instructions are being issued to officers in charge of hospitals for the posting of the necessary notices.

    ADJUTANTS (ADDITIONAL PAY).
    Mr. PERKINSasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that officers appointed to depots as adjutants have, so far, received no additional pay; and, having regard to the fact that these officers have for months past been doing adjutants' work, will he see that they receive, as from the date of their appointment, the extra pay allowed to adjutants?
    Mr. BAKER: Additional pay has been approved for acting adjutants of depots. When not already provided for in regulations this takes effect from the date of authorisation. For Infantry depots the date was 5th February.

    CLOTHING CONTRACTS.
    Mr. GEORGE GREENWOODasked the Under-Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that in Mitcham the remuneration for making khaki coats is at the rate of 8d. per coat, and the remuneration for making haversacks at the rate of 4s. and 3s. per dozen; and whether the contracts made by or on behalf of the Army Council contain any provisions with regard to sweating?
    Mr. BAKER: All War Office contracts contain the Fair-Wages Clause. I am not aware of the payment of the rates in question, but if the hon. Member will kindly furnish me with the names of the firms concerned, I will have the matter inquired into.

    GARRISON AND REGIMENTAL INSTITUTES BOARD.
    Mr. HOGGEasked whether the usual self-denying ordinance applies to the members of the Garrison and Regimental Institutes Board?
    Mr. BAKER: I am making inquiry into this matter.
    Mr. HOGGE: Cannot the hon. Gentleman say whether the proprietors of certain articles who are on this committee will not be allowed to contract?
    Mr. BAKER: I hope my hon. Friend will postpone the question until the Board has met again. I am not in a position to give an answer.

    WOMEN TYPISTS (WAR OFFICE).
    Mr. PERKINSasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if the women typists employed there have to work seven days a week; and if any arrangements are made by which they can have occasional holidays?
    Mr. BAKER: The typists employed in the War Office are compelled to take one day's rest in seven. Opportunity is also offered to them for taking occasional holidays.

    MILITARY HUTS.
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether any clerks of works or building inspectors were appointed by the War Office to superintend the erection of the huts, etc., at the various military camps; and, if so, will he state the number appointed?
    Mr. BAKER: The erection of huts for military camps has been carried out in nearly all cases by contractors or agents appointed by the War Office who have provided their own superintending staff. In two commands a portion of the hutting has been carried out under the chief engineers, who have, I am informed, appointed nineteen clerks of works for this purpose.
    Mr. TYSON WILSON: Am I right in assuming that some of them are appointed by the contractors?
    Mr. BAKER: No, Sir. The chief engineer has the whole responsibility to the War Office.

    RHYL MILITARY CAMP.
    Mr. TYSON WILSONasked the Financial Secretary to the War Office if he is aware that Robinson and Son, contractors, of Grime Street, Grimsby, who are carrying out work for the War Office for the military camp at Rhyl, refuse to pay for overtime worked for the job, as agreed to by the Grimsby Master Builders' Association and their workmen; and whether he will compel this firm to observe the Fair-Wages Resolution or cancel the contract they have in hand?
    Mr. BAKER: No complaint has been received regarding the firm in question; but I am making inquiries into the matter.

    INTERNED STEAMERS (COAL FREIGHTS).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in spite of the use of the interned steamers, the expected reduction in freights from the Tyne to London has not taken place; and what is now the rate?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: My right hon. Friend has requested me to answer this question. There was some reduction in freights when these vessels started running, but there was afterwards an upward tendency. I understand that 14s. 6d. was the last rate paid to an outside boat, and 12s. to an interned steamer.
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in order to ease the freight rates for coal from the Tyne to London, he can arrange for some of the colliers which take coal from Cardiff to the North Sea Fleet to take a cargo from the Tyne to London on the way back instead of returning empty?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: Certain colliers have already been temporarily released by the Admiralty for the purpose indicated, and the practice will be continued so far as Fleet considerations permit.
    Sir FORTESCUE FLANNERY: Would the hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of representing to the Admiralty that they should pay part of the excessive rate out of the savings on the hire of these colliers at 4s. per ton?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: I will convey the suggestion to the Admiralty.
    Mr. LOUGH: Is it not possible for the Board of Trade to fix these freights?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: No, I think not. As I have indicated, the rates charged for the interned steamers are lower than those in the open market.
    Sir RYLAND ADKINS: Are they fixed by the Board of Trade?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: They are fixed by the business firm accustomed to the management of these matters.
    Sir R. ADKINS: Have they been given instructions to fix them at as low a rite as possible?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: The firm was instructed to conform to the market rate and to resist any upward tendency.
    Mr. LOUGH: Where does the profit go if the rates are heavier on these interned ships?
    Sir R. ADKINS: My hon. Friend says that they were instructed to conform to the market rate. Does that mean the market rate as inflated in these peculiar circumstances?
    Mr. ROBERTSON: An inflated market rate is still a market rate. The firm were instructed to observe the market rata and to resist an upward tendency. These figures show that they are doing so.
    Mr. ALDEN: Would not the best way to resist be to charge less?

    CRYSTAL PALACE (HEALTH OF TROOPS).
    Mr. JOYNSON-HICKSasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, until all further risk of meningitis at the Crystal Palace is over, he will arrange for any men who have been in contact with those who have developed the disease to be kept in the Palace grounds so as to prevent the spread of the disease outside?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: As I indicated in the reply which I gave to the hon. Gentleman on the 18th instant, contacts are at once removed from the Palace altogether and isolated until all danger from them is passed.

    COTTON FOR EXPLOSIVES IN GERMANY.
    Mr. PETOasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give any estimate of the consumption of cotton by Germany for explosives used in mines and torpedoes, either per month or to date, since the outbreak of war; and whether he can furnish any estimate of the probable consumption should the War continue until the end of the present year?
    Dr. MACNAMARA: I am afraid that I can give no estimate.

    UNIFORM AND KIT ALLOWANCE.
    Mr. HODGEasked the Under-Secretary for War whether he is aware that the allowance for uniform and kit of £20 has given rise to dissatisfaction; and whether, seeing that no officer can provide such under £40, he will consider making such increased allowance such as will prevent such officers incurring a loss1?
    Mr. BAKER: The full outfit allowance is £50. The allowance of £20 is only given in cases in which a full campaigning outfit is not required, and I am not aware that it has been found inadequate.

  Post Office Engineering Department (Temporary Clerks' Wages).
  Mr. W. THORNEasked the Postmaster-General whether the wages of the temporary clerks employed in the engineering department of the Post Office are only 30s. a week; and whether, in view of the present cost of living, he will consider the possibility of granting these men a substantial increase?
  The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. Hobhouse): The maximum wages usually paid to temporary clerks employed in the engineering department of the Post Office are 30s. a week in the provinces and 35s. a week in London. The actual wages in individual cases depend upon length of service and the nature of the work performed, and I am inquiring whether there are any cases in which the circumstances justify An immediate increase.

  Commissionaire Pensioners (Wages).
  Mr. BARNESasked the Secretary to the Treasury if the question of an increase of wages to the commissionaire pensioners
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  has yet been settled; if not, when it is likely to be settled; and if he is aware that a settlement was expected to be reached in a few days some three months ago?
  Mr. ACLAND: I regret that I can as yet add nothing to the reply given to my hon. Friend on the 8th inst.
  Mr. BARNES: Are there any means of expediting this matter? It has been on now for a considerable time. Could not the tribunal which has been set up be used for the purpose of adjusting these wages?
  Mr. ACLAND: The matter is before the Cabinet, which, a3 everybody knows, has been very busy lately. I feel the matter has been outstanding for a considerable time, however, and I will do all I possibly can to expedite it.

  Metropolitan Police (Constable's Sudden Death).
  Mr. CHARLES DUNCANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware of the sudden death of a constable of the A Division, Metropolitan Police, on Monday last; whether this constable was on duty at the War Office on Saturday, attended a divisional surgeon at 9 a.m. on the Sunday, was refused examination and treatment, and was ordered to return to the surgeon at 10 a.m. the same day; whether the constable was found dead in bed at 4 a.m. on Monday; whether he is aware of dissatisfaction having existed for some time among the police attached to Cannon Row police station as to the manner in which sick police are treated; who is the surgeon in this particular case; and whether a special inquiry will be made into this matter with a view to avoiding a repetition of this state of affairs?
  Mr. McKENNA: The Commissioner of Police informs mc that the constable died suddenly last Monday. He was not on duty at the War Office or elsewhere on Saturday, being on leave on that day. On Sunday morning he was suffering from diarrhœa and attended at the divisional surgeon's at 9 o'clock, but as he was not in urgent distress he agreed to come back at the usual hour, 10 o'clock. The doctor prescribed for him, and he spent the day indoors. He was found dead in bed at 4.45 on Monday morning, and a post-mortem showed the presence of heart disease as well as inflammation of the stomach due to diarrhœa, for which he

  393
  was treated. The divisional surgeon referred to is a most capable medical man, appointed to this office in 1901, and I have no knowledge of any dissatisfaction. I may add that the constable received close and kindly attention from his comrades throughout Sunday, though no one realised that he was seriously ill. In the circumstances. I see no ground for any special inquiry.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  Lord EDMUND TALBOT: May I ask the Prime Minister what business will be taken next week?
  The PRIME MINISTER: On Monday we shall take the Vote of Credit and the Supplementary Vote of Credit, and Ways and Means Committee.
  On Tuesday we shall take the Second Reading of the Universities Bill and the Army (Annual) Bill, and the Committee stage of the Defence of the Realm Bill, and of the other Bills on the Paper.
  On Wednesday we shall give an opportunity for discussion on the subject of aliens, and thereafter take the Reports of the Votes of Credit and of other Supply, and Ways and Means Resolutions.
  On Thursday we shall take the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill, and the Committee stage of the Army (Annual) Bill.
  Mr. LOUGH: Can my right hon. Friend say when the promised discussion on sugar will take place?
  The PRIME MINISTER: There will be opportunities on the Vote of Credit and on the Second Reading of the Appropriation Bill.
  Mr. LOUGH: Did not my right hon. Friend promise that there would be a special occasion given?
  The PRIME MINISTER: No.
  Mr. JAMES HOPE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would be possible on the Vote of Credit to have some procedure whereby the discussion of certain points might be limited and focussed?
  The PRIME MINISTER: I think that is a question that ought to be addressed to Mr. Speaker.

  SUPPLY.— [FIFTH ALLOTTED DAY.]

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1915–16.
    [VOTE ON ACCOUNT—REPORT.]
    Resolution reported,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £36,853,000, be granted to His Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charges for the
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    following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1916."
    [For details of Vote on Account, see OFFICIAI. REPORT, 22nd February, 1915, cols. 47–50.]
    Resolution read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."

    CHILD LABOUR—AGRICULTURAL DISTRICTS.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I rise to call attention very briefly to a matter which is exciting a certain amount of interest and some alarm in the country. The subject will also be dealt with by some hon. Members with greater knowledge of the subject and who have more power of physical exertion than I possess at the present moment. I refer to the encroachments which are being made on the educational by-laws, chiefly in the agricultural districts, with the practical sanction of the Government in relation thereto. It has taken the House of Commons and the country over fifty years to build up even a partial system of education. Hon. Gentlemen and right hon. Gentlemen are able to look at this question from rather an abstract point of view. They may have sympathy for the children, but they do not consider the question of education from the same point of view as those of us who represent more or less directly the interests of the working classes, and who in many cases have had only the most limited education, while some of us have never spent a day in school in our lives.
    There are various limitations in the Acts of Parliament which regulate our educational system, and these limitations can be embodied in by-laws which have the same force as the Acts of Parliament. If the local authority fails to enforce the by-laws the Board of Education may hold an inquiry and enforce the findings of that inquiry by means of mandamus. That, briefly, is the present state of the law in England and Wales. Every child between the ages of five and fourteen is nominally entitled to such education as the public school can give. There always has been a certain strife in many agricultural districts between those who desire the children to be allowed to remain at school until they are fourteen and those who, especially in the agricultural industry, want the cheap labour of the children for their farms. It now looks as if the latter

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    were becoming more powerful and were obtaining the approval of the Government. That is a serious situation.
    I may quote very briefly a list of cases in which exemptions from the by-laws have already been settled with the practical approval of the Board of Trade. My information is taken from that very remarkable document submitted to the Board of Education by Miss Susan Lawrence. She tells us of such cases in Dorsetshire, Buckinghamshire. Devonshire, Gloucestershire, where in some instances boys of eleven years of age may be temporarily employed; Hampshire, where the chairman suggested that managers should be told not to prosecute for non-attendance if the parents desired boys of twelve years of age to leave school for farm work; Oxfordshire, where the education committee wrote to the Board of Education asking that children of thirteen might be exempted from school and the Board replied that it was not necessary to alter the by-laws, but advised the committee that they could exercise a reasonable discretion as to the enforcement of the law—in effect to "wink with both eyes"—but not to prosecute. At the meeting of the education committee a resolution was passed asking the attendance committee to consider favourably the absence of any boy of eleven years of age who was employed temporarily on farm work. In West Sussex it appears that the number of boys under twelve who are already at work is over 100. In East Sussex it is much the same, but the figures are not given. Wiltshire and Westmorland are also exempt. Even Yorkshire is being affected. In Somersetshire, on 31st October, the education authority asked to be allowed to exempt children of eleven years of age. In Derbyshire they also asked exemption.
    These are the agricultural districts, but in the manufacturing districts also encroachments are to be made. The Darles-ton Education Committee have been petitioned to exempt boys over thirteen years of age. The Staffordshire Committee in response to the application expressed their willingness to do this, in spite of the protestations of the trade unions that adult labour is available, and that the work to be done was too heavy for boys. That is the actual position that the bylaws issued to protect our children are being practically swept out of existence, as I hope to show before I finish, not
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    because of any special necessity for child labour, but very largely as a means of perpetuating the uneducated sweated labour in our agricultural districts. I will only read one quotation as showing the support which this action has received from the Government. On the 28th of August last year, the hon. Member for Wilton (Mr. C. Bathurst) desired to know whether the Government would enable boys over eleven years of age in purely agricultural districts to furnish assistance in necessary farming operations, subject to the approval and supervision of the local education authority.
    "Are we to understand,"
    he said,
    "that if the local authorities took such action they would not meet with the disapproval of the Board of Education?"
    The Prime Minister who had previously assured the hon. Member that the matter was well within the discretion of the local authorities, answered,
    "Yes Sir."
    That is to say, the local authority, if they made it easy for children to be employed, would not be prohibited either by the Government or the Board of Education. I received this morning a letter from the Member for Roxburghshire (Sir John Jardine) on this subject. He says he should have liked to be present, but was not well enough to attend. He adds this sentence:—
    "I think that under our system, as sanctioned by law, it should be a very exceptional thing to deprive children of twelve of any further education. This committee—"
    No doubt the hon. Gentleman speaks of the committee of the county in which he lives—
    "have doubts as to what authority can pass general orders. This matter ought to be made clear. There may also be benches of magistrates in very rural districts who give too much weight to the cry of the farmer for cheap labour. If it got to be believed that in all cases the bench would take the child away from school merely because they preferred agriculture to education I fear that the children would be sent without protection."
    There is danger that if this withdrawal of children is allowed, to meet, I suppose, the exigencies of the War situation, it may continue after the War is over. It is a difficult matter to get reforms, and once reforms are in operation and then relaxed, it becomes a still more difficult matter to get them re-established. I have a number of quotations—I will only read one or two of them—which proves the statement I am now making. This relates to a meeting of the executive of the Brecon and Radnor

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    Farmers' Union, and reported in the "Mark Lane Express." 19th October:—
    "Mr. R. T. Rogers was of opinion that children should be allowed to leave school earlier. He hoped the time would come when there would be a proper system of education, and children taught something which would be of assistance to them when they went out into the world.
    The chairman observed that there were some children intellectually bright and others the opposite, but in the cape of the latter, to keep them in school was an unnecessary waste of money."
    Once the principle is laid down it may become permanent. At the annual meeting of the Ashford branch of the Kent Fanners' Union, on the 1st February, Mr. Clements, according to the report in "The Mark Lane Express,"
    "spoke on the question of employing hoys over twelve years of age for agriculture, contending that too much education would mean a shortage of labourers."
    I would ask the House to observe that the question really is that in the admitted shortage of labour due to the War, many of those who are agitating are doing so in the hope that the relaxation of the education laws will be perpetual, and that their cheap labour will be continued. I want to refer to what we consider are the reforms which ought to be enforced, not merely to remedy the undoubted shortage of labourers in some of the agricultural districts, but to permanently improve the conditions of work of the agricultural labourers. The first requirement is higher wages. It is a most remarkable fact connected with this question which has to be dealt with, that the further north you go the more the tendency to employ child labour disappears. The further south you come, in the southern counties, and in parts of Wales, the stronger is the demand for the employment of child labour. When in the north of Scotland, and all over Scotland generally, and also in the north of England, the wages of agricultural labourers, farm hands, ploughmen and so on are almost double what they are in the southern districts of England, you see at once the reason why the farm hand should be in a position which will enable him to have the same respect for his child as any capable workman. The President of the Board of Education said—I quote him in support of my view:—
    "There is one curious fact in connection with this subject, and it is this, that where wages are lowest there has been the greatest tendency to lake children from school; where the conditions have been best, where the wages are highest, there is no demand on the part of the fanners to try and secure the cheap labour or the free labour of the boys on their farms."
    This was said on the 7th February by the right hon. Gentleman in reply to a deputation. Then we have the testimony,
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    and very remarkable it is, of the hon. Gentleman opposite, the Member for Oxford University (Mr. Prothero), who, in the House of Commons, on 17th February, referred to this question. I should like to quote a passage from his speech, because of one fallacy which to me it appears to contain:—
    "If you inquire in various quarters of the country, you will find that even ordinary wages of agricultural labourers have been raised by something like 2s. a week. I quite agree that 3s. would probably re-instate the men in the position in which they were before the War, and if hon. Members will go for that, there we must part company, because I do not think that that can be fairly expected from the employer."
    It does not seem to me to be logical, or very consistent, to say that farmers can afford to pay an extra two shillings and that they cannot afford to pay three shillings. That difficulty seems to be a small one. We put that forward as our first claim that a living wage should be fixed, by law if need be, or, at any rate, by Wages Boards; and, secondly, that suitable cottages should be provided for the agricultural labourer. We have Housing Acts and all sorts of Acts and all sorts of Departments for this purpose now, and it cannot be expected that agricultural labourers are going to be content to live the kind of life in the future which they have done in the past. There is one question upon which I do not know whether my colleagues would be unanimous, but which I feel might be used to great account in solving this problem for the War period. I refer to the question of the employment of women. I can remember in Scotland my own mother, who was a farm servant, many times had to work after she was married with her children growing up. I have seen her employed in the fields at kinds of work that I would not like to see any other woman employed at now; but there is much work about a farm which is perfectly respectable, clean, and which calls for a certain amount of intelligence—such as milking, the handling of milk, the making of butter, and many other occupations which a woman can do with advantage to herself and to others. But, like many other cases, the average woman brought up in the town or the city has lost all instinct for, and all contact with, the life of the farm.
    Then, if we are to permanently solve this problem, there must be a fresh land policy. This country cannot afford to allow its land to be sacrificed and its labourers to be degraded in order to perpetuate an old-time system of private ownership, and

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    before the agricultural problem can be solved some form of common local ownership and co-operation amongst the producers will require to be adopted. But these things are not for the moment. They do not help us in the situation in which we find ourselves. I say emphatically that child labour will not help the farmer even in what is called the present crisis. We want to find out what are the causes of the scarcity of labour. It is said that the agricultural labourer has enlisted to the extent of 10 or 12 per cent., and the big wages prevailing in the agricultural districts in connection with the camps have taken away the agricultural labourer also. But, let the causes be what they may, we on these benches protest against the child being made the victim. We ask the Government to investigate the causes, and to prevent education committees all over England robbing the child of the education which the law has provided for it.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: Do you want to rob them of their food?
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: No.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: Perhaps you will explain how.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I have tried to explain how.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: You have not explained it.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: I have pointed out that the agricultural labourer should have a wage sufficient to enable him to keep his family in comfort, and every consideration must be subjected to that. If it means the curtailment of the power of landlordism, the country will be all the better for it. The farmer, I know, is in a difficult position. I admit that. But at the present time his difficulties are being removed by the way in which prices have gone up and are still going up. The farmer stands between the landlord on the one hand, who must get his rents, and the labourer on the other hand, who has got to live. The labourer hitherto has been squeezed, while the landlord is stronger and better able to protect himself. But I am glad to say that the agricultural labourers are forming unions, and will not suffer as they have done in the past. The point is this: We ask the Government to take a firm stand against the suspension of the Education Act in agricultural districts; we ask them to preserve carefully all that we have got,
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    and to see that the agricultural labourer's child has the same chance to get education as the children in our larger towns. The whole matter may require investigation, but the one thing we protest against is that when a bit of a crisis appears to be on us, the burden of it should fall so heavily on the child. That surely can be avoided in a House with so much power as this House possesses, and I trust that the Government, instead of pursuing its policy of weeping with both eyes, will let the educational authorities all over England know that the Education Act must be enforced in the interests of the children.
    4.0 P.M.
    Sir JAMES YOXALL: I understand that the theory current amongst hon. Members who will speak against this Motion is that the difficulties of the time and the need of young labour during the War may be taken to justify a practice which, at another period and in more peaceful years, would not be justified even by them. I dare say that is the view which those who may speak on behalf of the Board of Education would also take of the question. I think we all wish to be reasonable, as reasonable as we can, at a time like this, and to make every practical concession there can be made to the special circumstances and difficulties of the period. But I confess I should be more inclined to accept the theory which I have sketched as being likely to be put forward by other speakers if I heard it at the present juncture for the first time. But I do not. I have been in this House for a good many years now, and I have seen at least four, and I think five, times a Bill brought forward for the express purpose of increasing the duration of the school life of children in urban districts hampered, injured, and finally killed by those who speak for the farming and land-owning classes. When there was no war, when agriculture itself was looking up and flourishing very satisfactorily, when there was no shortage of labour on the land, or no greater shortage than there has been for many years past, attempts to raise the half-time age of children in town schools were again and again successfully attacked, manœuvred, played with, and finally killed by those who are anxious to keep down the age for school attendance and introduce a still earlier age for child labour upon the land. Therefore, I think, there is some reason for regarding with suspicion the statement now made that these children must be

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    allowed to leave the elementary schools in the rural districts at an earlier age than they have done in the past because of the claims which the War makes on the labour of the country.
    I understand that the Board of Agriculture propose to farmers that they should employ Belgians upon the land, while the Board of Trade propose that labour for the farmers should be procured from the Labour Exchanges. I gather from reports of meetings of chambers of agriculture and farmers' unions all over the country that the farmers reject both these methods of temporarily supplying labour for the land on the ground that they are not practicable. Belgians, it appears, are townspeople, as also are the persons who might be supplied through the Labour Exchanges, and the labour of townspeople upon the land cannot be so valuable for farming purposes as the labour of children of eleven years of age who live in the villages. The Belgium adult and the Bradford and Bristol adult are useless for farming purposes compared with the great agricultural value of the lesser labourer of eleven years of age. References are made to the depletion of agricultural labour to the extent of 12 or 15 per cent. due to the War. There is also a depletion amongst the teachers of the country of about 25 per cent. due to the War. It would be to the interest of the teachers remaining in the rural districts if there could be removed from the schools 10, 15, or 25 per cent. of the school children to work upon the land, because it would mean less labour and less strain upon them during the War in the absence of the teachers who have enlisted. But I have received letters from teachers in rural schools, men and women alike, conveying to me lamentations upon this subject and descriptions of the loss of education in the future life of the children that would arise; and I am bound to say that in my view, after most careful investigation, there is no sufficient justification for the cry that the children must be taken out of the schools and put upon the land or else farming will go to rack and ruin. We are not going to get the supply of food largely increased by the labour of these youngsters upon the land. The labour of these children cannot for months, perhaps years, to come affect very much the supply or the prices of food.
    I join my hon. Friend (Mr. Keir Hardie) in what he said about the land system and the proper way of dealing with it. I join
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    him in saying that better wages for agricultural labourers is the way to keep men upon the land and to induce people to leave the town for labour on the land. But, as he pointed out, those are matters which cannot be dealt with now. The question before us now is, shall we take away from schools at 11½ or 12 years of age scores and hundreds and thousands of children during this crisis and destroy a large part of their chances of ever getting any education at all? Will the House agree to that? Will the Board of Education approve of that? Will the Government stand up and defend it? Will members of local education authorities close their eyes to their proper duty under the law and wink at laxity? Will justices of the peace in rural districts, when the members of the education authority do their duty and bring these cases into Court, go on refusing to administer the law as it is their duty to administer it? These are the questions before the House, and it is to them that I beg the House to address itself, and I hope the President of the Board of Education will deal with them when he comes to reply. The teachers are short-handed. The more scholars there are in the schools the harder is the work the teachers have to do. Therefore it is an unselfish demand on their part that I make to the House, that we should not interfere with the already too short, incomplete, and insufficient educational prospects of the children by bringing into the field at the present moment boys and girls who ought to be at school. I hope that this question will not be dealt with as one between food for the minds of the children and food for the body of the parents. That question does not really arise. Employ all the children you can in this way, multiply the present number employed by ten thousand or a hundred thousand, and you cannot do much for the supply of food for the parents, but you will destroy the food for the mind of the coming generation in the rural districts and undo that very difficult and long process of building up the education of the children, which has gone on so imperfectly, but which was beginning to go on more hopefully, at the end of all these years.
    Mr. PROTHERO: The speech to winch we have just listened was one of a high educational authority and deserves the attention of the House. The speech of the opener of the Debate (Mr. Keir Hardie) affected me by its evident earnestness and sincerity. But I think that the danger we

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    really run is that we are exaggerating the situation altogether and losing sight of the principle which ought to run through the whole of this discussion. That principle is that the cultivation of the land is a necessity. You cannot carry it on without a supply of labour, and if you try to get an abnormal supply of labour from any new source there are reasonable abjections in whichever direction yon look. The question is, if you have an absolute shortage of labour, in which direction can you look with the best advantage and the least detriment to the community? Recruiting has, in certain districts, produced an absolute shortage of labour. Look where you will, there is no means of supplying the labour market in such agricultural districts. It is not so in every district, because recruiting has been very patchy. In one parish you will find three or four farms without a single man of military age and capacity left, while in an adjoining parish you may find three or four farms from which no one has enlisted. But in the districts where recruiting has taken firm hold of the people there is an absolute shortage of labour. I think the hon. Member for Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall) rather doubted whether there was an absolute shortage of labour, because he said that farmers were offered Belgians and were also able to go to the Labour Exchanges. A great difficulty in regard to getting Belgians—I know the difficulty, because it has been tried—is that there is no agency at work in this country to sort the Belgian refugees and set aside those who are available for agricultural work. It would be as absurd to go to a Labour Exchange and get a plumber in a boot factory where you wanted a finisher as it would be to get a Belgian brewer to go on the land as an agricultural labourer.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: May I say that the Labour Exchanges have a complete list of the refugees, with their occupations and life history, and they could supply agricultural labourers?
    Mr. PROTHERO: How long has that been so?
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The preparation of the list has been going on for the last four or five months.
    Mr. PROTHERO: That the preparation has been going on I am quite aware, but at the present moment the list is not available. With regard to the Labour Exchanges, the farmer is looking out for
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    adult agricultural labourers, but at the present time no agricultural adult labourer registers because he is perfectly well aw are that he can get a job wherever he goes. Therefore it is useless for the farmer to employ the Labour Exchanges. But I sincerely hope that in this crisis the fanners will go to the Labour Exchanges and endeavour by every possible means to get adult labour wherever they can; I have long tried to make farmers in my own country use the Exchanges, but I know there has been that insuperable objection—that if you go there you are offered perhaps a plumber out of work, or a misfit in industrial life, and not an adult agricultural labourer. In certain districts there is an absolute shortage of labour, and it is proposed by the chambers of agriculture that, owing to the scarcity of labour in the present crisis, children of twelve years of age and upwards should be exempted from school attendance during the continuance of the War, provided they are employed solely on farms.
    We have heard a great deal about children of eleven and eleven and a half. Apparently the statement has been made that farmers are trying to get children of that age. I do not think there is the slightest foundation for that statement. What is the position? I have long been a member of the local education authority, and I may inform the Member for West Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall) I have tried my utmost to increase the school age for town children in my own country. There fore, I am not out of sympathy with his proposal. What, however, is really asked is simply this: Already children who have attained the sixth standard are entitled to a certificate of exemption. Children of twelve years and upwards who are not in that standard, but who have made a certain number of attendances, are entitled to what I am afraid in my country is called "the dunce's certificate of exemption," provided that they have made a certain number of attendances. What the local education authority asks is that at this exceptional crisis, and for this specific purpose, children over the age of twelve should be allowed to leave school, although they may not have reached the sixth standard and although they may not have made the requisite number of attendances. That is all that is asked—nothing more, only that!
    I so far agree with the two hon. Members who have spoken that I think it would have been very much better if the Board of Education had given local authorities a

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    direct lead on the subject; if they had said for instance, "You should not grant the certificates," or "You should insist upon your attendance officer prosecuting unless the school managers are satisfied that the parents want the child to go; that the child has produced the proper certificate of birth; that there is an absolute shortage of labour; that the farmer has gone to the Labour Exchanges and failed to find labour; that the hours of labour are such and such; that the wages of labour are so and so; and that the child will not have to travel more than a certain distance to arrive at the farm." If the Board of Education had made that answer instead of, as it were, throwing the responsibility upon the local education authorities, it would have been much better, for what the local education authorities wanted was a lead and guidance, and in my opinion they did not get it.
    Put, however, in that way, in the straight, limited way that I have put it, where there is an absolute shortage of labour, provided that those conditions are complied with, I venture to think that the damage to the child is very much exaggerated, as well as the number of children who would be damaged. When the Member for West Nottingham talked of the hundreds of thousands of children, surely he must have known that he was exaggerating! After all, we are here to discuss a very practical question, and we ought to try—it is our duty—to present the case exactly as it is and without exaggeration. It is said that farmers are trying to get cheap, low-priced labour. Within the last week we have had three discussions upon agricultural topics. In the first the suggestion was made that the farmer, to enrich himself, was exploiting the necessities of the poor. The suggestion in the second was that the farmer, to suit his own convenience, was turning out of their homes the wives and dependants of the soldiers at the front. The third suggestion is that of the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), that the farmer is trying to perpetuate the uneducated, sweated labour of our agricultural districts.
    The British farmer is not a paragon of virtue; at the same time he is not an ogre! He is a human being just as any of us, and in proportion as these three suggestions are shocking and alien to our natures, we ought to be very careful before we assume that they are true of our absent neighbour. I for one deny that in making this appeal
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    for the use of children at an exceptional crisis there is any attempt on the part of the farmers to stop the progress of education in the country. It may perhaps be out of line with the argument, but I would like to say that whatever the farmer thought twenty years ago he is new in favour of education. His complaint is, that, in the elementary schools of the country districts a course of education is given to the children which not only disqualifies but discourages them from following the pursuit of an agricultural labourer. They further complain—and I think with reason—that while you spend millions on technical instruction on other industries, you dole out pence in technical instruction in agriculture, and you give it at a time when it is neither useful or effective. That is the position of the farmer at the present day as to education.
    The hon. Member (Mr. Keir Hardie) went on to suggest that higher wages should be given. He quoted a passage from a speech of my own. If I may venture to explain that to him, what I was saying then was this: "That there is a time during work on a farm when the agricultural labourer has ordinarily no work to do; that during the wet months we have had all labour operations were suspended." I said, "Here is a case in which, if you go in for the strict law of supply and demand, the farmer is entitled to say, 'I am not using the labourer, why should I raise his wages?'" I went on to say, "That the moral responsibility of the employers had almost universally in this country overridden those strict laws of supply and demand, and wages had been raised by 2s. in order partially to restore the agricultural labourer to where he was before." I am entirely with the hon. Member when he wants higher wages. We, all of the agricultural community, want to see higher wages paid, but that cannot come at a dead agricultural season of the year; it will come the moment the farmer begins his spring operations. Then you will find wages increase, and I, for one, will be glad if the farmers are able to pay them. That is the explanation of my observations.
    When the hon. Member talks of the low rate of wages, does he know what is the rate of wages? Is there any hon. Member in this House who knows? I venture to say there is not. In 1907 we did have an official inquiry into wages, which was so impartial, so sound, and so practical that we do know approximately what wages

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    were in 1907. Although, however, there was an inquiry in 1898, another in 1902, and another in 1907, the Government have never again inquired into agricultural wages. They at last set on foot an inquiry last autumn, I believe, but neither the hon. Member, nor the hon. Baronet who represents the Board of Agriculture, nor myself, nor anybody else in this House knows what is the average rate of wages.
    I can tell hon. Members this: the official statistics show that since 1896 there has been a continuous rise in agricultural wages every year. That rise had been secured, up to the end of 1913, without any of the expenses of strikes or lock-outs, and there is no industry in the country which can show a continuous rise of the same kind. You will find that in the published Official Statistics for 1913. The hon. Member spoke of the provision of cottages for agricultural labourers. That was a point which was brought up, I think, by the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division a few days ago. We all have heard of the shortage of cottages in the rural districts. A rural district is not necessarily an agricultural district. A "rural district" is a Public Health Act term which may include a semi-urbanised area, and the shortage of agricultural cottages is a very small thing indeed. I have a return for 260 estates in various parts of England and Wales representing over one million acres, dealing with upwards of 22,000 agricultural cottages built for agricultural labourers, and showing how they are now occupied. Out of those 22,000 cottages only 13,000 are occupied by agricultural labourers. The remaining 9,000 are occupied by persons who prey upon the provision made for the agricultural labourer by the agricultural landowner. Nine thousand cottages built for the agricultural labourer, and occupied by whom? Over 1,000 are occupied by the employés of the Government and of the local authorities. Why have not they done their duty and built their cottages. There are upwards of 5,000 occupied by industrial capitalists who have collected large numbers of people for industries other than agriculture. Why have they not done their duty and built their cottages?
    I would remind hon. Members that nearly one-seventh of these 22,000 cottages are occupied by old age pensioners—occupied through the sympathy of that class which is not always fairly treated by hon.
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    Members opposite—though, I believe, in fairness I should say that that lies in the fact that we do not understand one another quite as well as we ought. Over 3,000 of them! When you speak of the shortage of agricultural cottages surely you are making a very great mistake! The Member for the Attercliffe Division (Mr. Anderson) quoted a statement, I think, in the unofficial land inquiry, that 120,000 cottages was the shortage in rural districts. He did not know, or at all events he did not let the House know, that those were rural districts, not agricultural districts, and that it was not a shortage of agricultural cottages, but a shortage of cottages required for other purposes than agriculture. I need hardly say that I do not wish to say anything against the authors of that Inquiry who, I have no doubt, tried to be correct and impartial.
    But there is no agriculturist in the country who does not regard that Inquiry as a gross caricature and an absolutely obsolete account of the condition of agriculture to-day. Now, if the labour is wanted, how are you going to provide it? I did not quite understand whether the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) was an advocate for the employment of women labour. I think that in certain kinds of agriculture, like dairying, woman's labour would be extremely valuable, and would be most useful to the woman as well as to the farmer. The worst of it is that in the present generation you cannot find a woman in the village who can milk at all. Therefore, again, that side of the shortage cannot be relieved in that way. Then the hon. Member spoke of the lower wages in the south, but does it ever occur to him that the higher wages in the north—Durham, Northumberland, Westmorland, and such counties—are wages given to men in charge of animals? In that part of England there is a ready market for the produce of a grass farm, and wherever there is a ready market for the produce of a grass farm, higher wages are paid—in the south and east, just as in the extreme north.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: My point was that where wages are low and conditions unsatisfactory there is a demand for the relaxation of the education by-laws. May I ask whether the hon. Member would tell us who built the cottages to which he refers?
    Mr. PROTHERO: The 22,000 cottages were built by the agricultural landowners

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    out of their own money for the accommodation of agricultural labourers. As to the other matter, the point is this: On a mixed arable farm the shortage of labour is at once more acutely felt the moment you begin the Spring operations of the farm than anywhere else: and the wages on an arable farm are much higher per acre and less per individual.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: May I ask whether the hon. Member's remarks apply to the Lowlands of Scotland?
    Mr. PROTHERO: I have no experience of the Lowlands of Scotland. I am speaking of the wages of England and Wales. I understood this question was practically confined, the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil told us, to England and Wales, and that Scotland was excluded.
    Mr. KEIR HARDIE: Excluded by its superior system.
    Mr. PROTHERO: And, I might add, by its greater love of education. But the point to be remembered is this, and it is one very often lost sight of: When you talk of raising wages you have to consider the number of men on a farm. If you raise wages by 5s. a week on a grass farm, it only means on a 200-acre grass farm a charge of 5s. an acre; but if you raise it on an arable farm it will mean much more like 15s. an acre, because a much larger number of persons is employed. Those are points on which I felt myself obliged to follow the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil. I do not think they affect the present question, which is simply how you are going to find the sort of labour to meet the existing shortage. By such a letter as the Board of Education might send round, I think that you would reduce the employment of child labour to a minimum, that you would mitigate the evil, and that you would not produce all these evils which, I think, have been somewhat exaggerated by the Mover and the Seconder.
    Mr. GEORGE ROBERTS: Like my hon. Friend, I can recall discussions on previous occasions on this same question. For a number of years there has been a tendency on the part of farming and landowning interests to demand a reduction in the school age of children in rural areas. Therefore, the question is by no means a new one, but the incident of the War has been utilised for the purpose of Hiving it greater prominence. Undoubtedly
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    farmers have for many years past been agitated about the question of labour supply, but they have never yet, in my opinion, gone the right way to work in order to find a solution. It is perfectly well known that there is a constant flow from the country-side to the towns in some districts, and the result is that we have a scarcity, generally understood, of labour in the country, but a superfluity of labour in many of these towns. An analysis of the reasons of this generally clearly shows that the men leave the country-side because of the low wages there prevailing and because of the conditions of living to which they are subjected.
    There is no doubt whatever that better wages, free homes in place of tied cottages, greater facilities for education and recreation, would stem the flow to the town and solve the problem with which the farmer has to grapple. I happen to be one of those born in a small agricultural village who still maintain a pretty intimate contact with conditions there prevailing, and I have no doubt whatever in my mind that, were the wages and the housing questions equitably solved, we would have got rid of this question. But the real point we have to consider here to-day is whether we ought to sanction the general employment of children of school age in agricultural and other pursuits, for let it be borne in mind that, although the discussion so far has mainly centred around the rural aspect of the question, the demand is not confined to farmers, but is already being rapidly extended to manufacturing centres, and we entertain a very grave apprehension that unless this House does strongly disapprove of the employment of children of school age all the advantages painfully built up by a series of Education Acts may be destroyed, not only to the detriment of the individual child, but to the nation as a whole.
    We are aware that this question has assumed its form in this House arising out of a question submitted by the hon. Member for Wilton (Mr. Charles Bathurst) to the Prime Minister. I regret the hon. Gentleman is not here, because, I am proud to acknowledge a very close relationship with him, and I would not like to say anything in his absence that might be misunderstood. He is generally progressive on questions even of agricultural concern, but I am much disappointed that he should have personally associated himself with this agitation for the employ-

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    ment of child labour. But the hon. Gentleman certainly got some encouragement from the reply of the Prime Minister. I am aware of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman and the Members of the Cabinet generally have very large responsibilities resting upon them, and they may not have the time closely to follow every one of these questions as they arise; but it is perfectly certain that farming and other interests in the country have construed the reply of the Prime Minister to mean that the Government, the Board of Education in particular, will favourably consider this question and acquiesce in the relaxation of the provisions of the Education Act.
    The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil has already instanced the fact that a number of county council education authorities immediately proceeded on the assumption that they would have the backing of the Government in relaxing the provisions of the Education Act, with the result that there are numbers of children already being employed who are not qualified by law for that employment. The White Paper which has been issued bears out that contention. We are told that in West Sussex there were at the end of October sixty-seven boys who had left school under these conditions, the average age of the boys being thirteen years and three months, and the average wages paid 4s. 10½d. per week. Well, I view with very grave concern the whole of this tendency. I have had some experience of the administration of the Education Acts. For several years I was a member of the old School Board for the city of Norwich, and this question of partial or complete exemption was always one of the most difficult points with which we had to deal. I had always understood that you could only entertain the question of exemption on condition that the local authority was satisfied that the child was beneficially employed. Of course, when we come to construe the meaning even of those words we get different points of view. I always urge that the spirit of the law requires that we should have regard to the future interests of the child. "Beneficially employed" might mean that the parent was anxious to have an addition to the family income, or that the employer might regard it that child labour was beneficial to his particular industry.
    I believe that we more correctly interpret the desire of Parliament and the
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    spirit of the Education Acts by a strict inquiry as to whether exemption is going to be to the ultimate benefit of the child's welfare. Now we have the point that the education authority has only to be satisfied that there is reasonable excuse for the exemption, and that places a very dangerous power in the hands of education authorities. Supposing farming interests are well represented, as they generally are, on county council education authorities. It would not be at all difficult to convince an education authority that the children will be beneficially employed. I want to go further, and say that, in my opinion, it has not yet been proved that there is a shortage of labour in agriculture which cannot be overcome by other and better methods. Of course, we recognise—and everybody who knows me will admit that I have recognised—the extraordinary emergency through which the country is passing, and if it were the case that we had not adult labour to cultivate the land, I would be prepared to consider relaxations, properly safeguarded. But we are in no such need of labour. I believe that there is labour in the community which can be secured for the purpose if the conditions are only made just and sufficiently attractive. The replies which have been given to questions by Members of the Government have also confirmed that view. I say that the relaxation of the conditions of exemption ought to be the very last resort of a country, even in a great national emergency.
    I might cite one or two cases which have been brought to my notice of extraordinary relaxations that have already taken place. I have stated that not only is there a very strong demand on the part of farming interests, but we are also aware of the fact that manufacturers are already taking advantage of the Board of Education's acquiescence in the relaxation which has already taken place. I have here a report of a case tried at Edinburgh on 1st February of a firm being fined £10 for employing two boys aged twelve and thirteen during the night. In the case of the twelve-year-old boy, he was at school on Monday from 9 o'clock to 3 o'clock; he went into the factory at six, and worked until 5 o'clock next morning. He then went to school, and in the evening resumed work in the factory until 5 o'clock on the Wednesday morning. On Wednesday he was ill, and could not go to school, but he went to the factory at night, and went back to the school on Thursday. The inspector found

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    him in the factory at work at 9.40. In the case of the other boy, the circumstances were similar. He had collapsed at work and had slept in a corner of the factory. I do not suggest that farmers or employers generally are harsh. I have not been accustomed to resorting to exaggerated or immoderate language, but once we allow these relaxations we are laying the child life of the country open to injury even as great as that indicated in the reference I have just made.
    Mr. CURRIE: The case which the hon. Member has just referred to took place in my Constituency, and I think it is only fair to state that the foreman and the proprietors of the bottle works in question were not aware that the children were going to school. Therefore, so far as their culpability goes, I wish to remind the House of those facts.
    Mr. G. ROBERTS: I do not want to misrepresent the case. I was quoting from the "Glasgow Herald" of 2nd February, which states that an agent on behalf of the firm tendered a plea of guilty, and in mitigation of the sentence stated that the exceptional conditions of the labour market, particularly with regard to a factory of that kind, might excuse the employment. I have carefuly verified the illustrations I have used in the Debate, and the hon. Member can accept it from me that I do not want to exaggerate anything that occurs in his constituency. I want to make clear one observation in regard to general educational interests. In my opinion we throw the child into school at too early an age, and we push him out too early. The desire to place boys of twelve on to the land is based on the assumption that every child born of rural parents is destined to become an agricultural labourer. We have no right to make that assumption, and I believe that when we develop a better educational system we shall raise rather than lower the school age, and the period now desired for exemption will be utilised for more closely watching the aptitudes of the child in order that he may be directed to those pursuits according to his own aptitudes. Therefore this is unjust to the rural child, and it is a handicap that you do not impose upon a child in the town. I have already stated that I am myself of agricultural descent, and therefore I am not likely to hold or acknowledge that there is any law that dooms a child born of rural parents to a less finely convoluted brain than a child born in a town. I feel that we ought not to proceed
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    on the assumption that there must be a close differentiation between the rural and the urban child. Children in the rural areas already suffer sufficient disabilities, and in this connection I would like to read an extract from the report of the chief medical officer of the Board of Education, which has been recently issued. It says:—
    "In no direction are the ravages of war more serious or more difficult to replace than in the loss of human life. Consequently the question of the preservation of the rising generation and care for its physical fitness and equipment is of more than ordinary importance."
    It emphasises the task of the school medical service, and later on the report proceeds to state:—
    "For the existence and strength of a nation ultimately depends upon the survival of its children and their physical and mental health."
    I believe that the revival of education is never going to ensue if you have recourse to child labour. Agriculture in the future is only going to develop provided you have a well-equipped agricultural population. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie) referred to co-operation and other things; but in my view we shall have to elevate the whole standard of agricultural education if prosperity is ultimately to ensue to agriculture in this country. Therefore do not let us exaggerate the emergency with which we are now surrounded, and thus do a permanent damage to the better prospects which have arisen for agriculture in recent years.
    I submit that whatever might be our speculative opinion, we ought to be very careful before we embark upon anything in the nature of relaxation. We are aware of the fact that the countries with whom we have to compete have paid greater regard to educational matters than we have. I have always claimed that the brain quality of the British people is of the highest in the whole world, and yet we have to acknowledge that there are certain directions in which our competitors do excel, and the whole secret of that is that they have paid greater attention to educational matters than we have so far done. Germany, with whom unfortunately we are at war, is an example of this. The year before last certain of my colleagues and myself paid a visit to Denmark in order to inquire into agricultural conditions there, and we were impressed with the fact that there were two factors mainly accounting for the great prosperity of Danish agriculture, one was education and the other was the widespread adoption of the co-operative principle. There we found not a tendency to curtail the educational facilities of the child, but to extend them. The

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    People's High Schools there are splendid institutions, and I hope that ultimately, even in our agricultural districts, we shall raise the age for attendance at elementary schools and make some such provision as exists in Denmark for the continuation of education in the high schools.
    5.0 P.M.
    The knowledge that we all possess of the remarkable strides that a small state like Denmark has made in agricultural development ought to make the Members of this House pause before they give encouragement to the movement we are now considering. We find that these exemptions rapidly spread. I extracted this from a newspaper only this morning. The superintendent of the school attendance officers for Paddington told the magistrate at the Marylebone Police Court yesterday that since the outbreak of the War no fewer than 650 instances have been brought to his knowledge of school boys being illegally employed, and in 100 cases summonses had been issued against employers. Those 650 instances came under the notice of this superintendent of school attendance officers in the area of one educational authority alone. It is quite impossible for us to state how far manufacturers, traders, and agriculturists have taken a part in this very free construction placed upon the reply of the Prime Minister and the Board of Education. It is very remarkable that three days after the Prime Minister's statement one education authority asked the Board of Education whether they were free to sanction the employment of boys between the ages of eleven and fourteen. I refer to the approach of the Northampton (Soke of Peterborough) to the Board of Education. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil was not, therefore, exaggerating when he quoted the age of eleven, for it appears in the White Paper that this education committee asked if they could sanction the employment of boys between the ages of eleven and fourteen.
    Mr. PROTHERO: Might I ask the hon. Member whether this was an agricultural district only?
    Mr. G. ROBERTS: They are farmers. I will read it out. The secretary to the education committee writes:—
    "I am desired to call your attention to the report that the House of Commons last week was informed by the Prime Minister that farmers were now allowed to have the temporary services of boys between eleven and fourteen years in purely agricultural districts."
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    The reply of the Board of Education certainly gave them reason to think that the exemption would be granted, and that they would suffer no detriment in consequence; but now a remarkable change has come over the Board of Education. Unfortunately the correspondence is not arranged in chronological order, and is somewhat misleading, but this apprehension existing in the minds of many people of all classes found expression in an agitation which developed, and the Board now certainly directly discourages the hope that these relaxations will be acquiesced in. I venture to hope that the right hon. Gentleman's reply this afternoon will accord with the latter portion of the correspondence, and not with the first part of the White Paper.
    The hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr Tydvil made the point that the demand for the employment of child labour largely comes from those districts where wages are low. I admit that it is difficult to state with accuracy what are the wages in agricultural districts. We may state the money wages, and yet be unfair to employers and misleading to the public, because there are so many other factors which have to be taken into account—cottages, allowances, and that sort of thing. The mere quotation of a money standard may not, therefore, be an accurate reflection of the remuneration of the agricultural labourer. I am bound to admit that; but, nevertheless, it is remarkable that where that standard is lowest the demand for child labour appears to be the strongest. I am told that wages in Oxford are 12s. 6d. per week, in Dorset 13s. 7d., in Wiltshire 14s., in Gloucestershire 14s. 7d., in Bedfordshire 15s., and in Essex 15s. There may be allowances, but, as I say, we can only take the money standard. It is quite true that since 1896 there has been a general upward tendency in agricultural districts, but that simply shows how bad things must have been in 1896. If we take into consideration the constantly rising cost of living, I am afraid that the elevation of the agricultural labourer is not so substantial as some might believe.
    I know what are the conditions of my own family. Only a year or two back, certainly within the last five years, a relative of mine, working on the farm, a honest, straightforward man, received 12s. per week. There was 1s. 6d. per week deducted for the rent of his cottage, and he went home with 10s. per week. I have

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    lived in those conditions, and have gone and stayed with people who are subjected to those conditions, and the finest rhetorical flights will not prove to me that the lot of the agricultural labourer is materially improved, having regard to the conditions of modern life.
    I would, with the indulgence of the House, like to relate an incident in my own life. I was born, as I have stated, in a small agricultural village. My parents, like many agriculturists, removed to the town in the hope of being able to win a better standard of living. I was then in very delicate health, and I was advised by the doctors that I ought to spend my time in the country, with the result that for several years I attended rural schools in different parts of Norfolk. I stayed with a relative, and had to share a bedroom with a young fellow. He had ambitions for a broader and a fuller life than his father had enjoyed, and a desire for education. He would take a book to bed with him at night and would study botany. I helped him to spell out the words which he could not understand. At midnight he would probably get up and leave me for some hours. I wondered what he did, and subsequently I found that he resorted to a bit of poaching. He was not naturally a criminal—subsequent events have proved that—but he had this ambition within him. He wanted to buy books, and he bought tools for cultivating land and made experiments with flowers and other things so soon as he had saved sufficient money out of the proceeds of what most people regard as a disreputable action. [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] Well, I am afraid that I had never sufficient courage to embark upon it, and, if I possess any virtue, it has therefore to be attributed to lack of courage.
    He left this country as soon as he had got sufficient money, and I very often get newspapers from the Colony in which he now resides which prove to me that he is a distinguished public citizen, that he has made great progress, and that he is held in high regard by his neighbours. He told me in one letter he wrote that for years he was handicapped by the fact that he had to settle down to acquire the very elementary basis of education in order that he might fit himself for business and that civic work in which he subsequently became engaged. This all goes to emphasise the fact that there may be much genius latent among the agricultural population and much talent which, if released, will redound to the benefit of
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    the country as a whole; but, if we are going to relax the provisions of the Education Act and acquiesce, even in the panic of a temporary emergency, in children being thrust into agricultural and other pursuits, we shall destroy all that talent and we shall place a permanent injury in the way of national development. I believe the agricultural problem to be the root question in this country. If you elevate the agricultural labourer, in my opinion you raise the whole social standard. I therefore venture to express the fervent hope that this House to-day will do nothing to curtail the educational facilities of the rural child, but that the spirit evoked in this Debate will be in the direction of providing additional facilities for that class.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: I am sure that hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House will have heard with great interest the description of the progress which the hon. Gentleman has made from a lowly beginning in a cottage until he has been able, by his latent genius, to raise himself to the proud and responsible position which he now occupies as a representative of labour in this House. He has my hearty sympathy, and I congratulate him upon the possession of those qualities which have enabled him to reach to his present position, but, I fail altogether to perceive how and in what way that description applies to the suggestion that in a time of great and exceptional crisis, when it is admitted by almost everyone, except the hon. Member, that then is a great dearth of that agricultural labour necessary for the production of the food which we are all anxious to see produced in greater quantities in our own country, the Board of Education should be asked, as a purely temporary expedient, to relax some of its rules with regard to boy labour. Having said that, I ask permission of the House, as one of those whose duty it was to serve upon the Royal Commission which had to inquire into that question of vital importance to this country, our food supplies in time of war, to intervene in this Debate for a few moments.
    I think I have been able to make myself more or less familiar with every branch of this important subject. In the first place, I wish to express my surprise at how little—so I gathered from some of the speakers on the other side, not excluding the hon. Member who has just sat down—how little any one of them realises what might so easily have been

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    the extreme gravity of the situation as regards the food supply of this country at the present moment. People in all directions are complaining, and I am not surprised at it, that the price of wheat should now be as high as 62s. per quarter, that, although we have the complete command of the sea to-day, and although our great antagonist—with the exception of Austria and Turkey; the last country I think we might almost put aside as a serious factor—is fighting practically against the whole world. Just consider what our position migrt rave been if we had had two great naval Powers opposed to us, instead of occupying the exceedingly favourable position which we do. Does not that consideration alone emphasise the vital necessity of doing everything that is possible in our power, not only now, but as I hope and trust in days to come, to use every effort for the greater production of food—of that staple food which is a vital necessity to the lives of our people—to use every effort to do that in far greater degree than is the case at present.
    With these considerations before us, what becomes of what are really after all nothing but the petty, trifling objections urged by hon. Gentlemen to a merely temporary interference with the action of the Education Board in response to appeals which have been made to that Board—appeals which I hope, with all my heart and soul, they will listen to in opposition to the views of hon. Members opposite, appeals to extend what help they can for the further production of food in our own country. The last speaker said it was all very fine to put these appeals forward, but there is no proof of any shortage of labour. Has he studied the information which he might easily obtain as to the shortage of labour for agriculture at the present moment? Just before I came into the I House I had a whole sheaf of proofs put into my hands, and they absolutely contradict everything said by the hon. Member. There is first of all the view of the Board of Agriculture. I suppose the hon. Member will admit that that body has some opportunity of learning and knowing what is the condition of the country as regards agricultural labour at the present time. At a meeting of the Central Chamber of Agriculture on the 26th January, 1915, a letter was read from the Board of Agriculture which contained the following paragraph:—
    "The Board are satisfied that the shortage of farm labour has become very serious indeed in certain
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    districts, if not throughout the country generally, and that the time has arrived when farmers must take concerted action to deal with the situation if they are to carry on their business with profit to themselves, and in the interests of the nation."
    What does the hon. Member say in reply to that? I suppose he was not aware of this statement on the part of the Board of Agriculture. But if he were aware of it, and if he had had proofs to offer that it was all nonsense and that there was no shortage, surely he would have advanced them. Again, I have here a report of the Central Chamber of Agriculture itself. The Central Chamber of Agriculture is. I suppose, the hon. Member will admit, representative of all agricultural districts in the Kingdom. Indeed there is hardly a farmer who does not belong to it. What do they say?
    "Your committee consider that, owing to the scarcity of labour in the present crisis, children of twelve years of age and upwards should be exempted from school attendance during the continuance of the War, provided they are occupied solely on farms."
    There was also a statement made by the Prime Minister in this House which will be in the recollection of hon. Members. I could give half a dozen other proofs, but I do not want to delay the House, especially as I think that I have said quite sufficient to destroy the allegation of the hon. Member that the shortage of agricultural labour has not been in any way made out. Why is more labour for agriculture invoked at the present time? Because many of our rural population are animated by exactly the feelings that we should have expected of them—by the English patriotism and the English instinct which has prompted them to give their services at the front, and their lives, too, if needed, for the cause in which our common country and our Empire is now engaged. That is the whole reason. You have men adopting these magnificent resolves—and they are magnificent, whether they be on the part of the agricultural labourer, or Members of the Labour party in this House, or of any other party here, or of any classes in the country—they are all magnificent. Everyone of us must sympathise with them, we must rejoice to see the thousands of people from all parts of the country who are ready, for the sake of their country, to take part in the enormous and vital struggle in which we are engaged, and in which we are determined at all costs ultimately to succeed. It is a struggle for our very existence as a nation, and I wish that I could think that all hon. Members in this House were as sensible as everyone ought to be, of the enormous and gigantic task which the country has undertaken.

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    It is not over yet, although it certainly will end in our favour if we all of us put our shoulders to the wheel, each in his separate capacity, and do everything in our power to conduce to the ultimate, the great, and the final decision.
    With all respect to some of the speeches made, I must say they were not calculated, in my opinion, to achieve this great end. I own that there passed through my mind once or twice what the Prime Minister said on an occasion not very long ago—that really, if it had not been that he was in the House of Commons and had heard some of the speeches which were made on that occasion, he would never have dreamed that anyone could have known or believed that the country was involved in so great a crisis as it was at that time. What I want to suggest to hon. Gentlemen is this. What we in Parliament—what all of us have to remember—is that there is another great army here at home, namely, the industrial army, on which we depend for our home-grown food, which is as necessary for our existence as any other equipment for war itself, and which is absolutely needed by us, and may be much more needed ere many months are over. A great many hon. Gentlemen, I suspect, have not quite realised that. I have had to think of these things for many years. I have been connected with the growth of food and other agricultural products all my life, and a very long one it has been. But I never was more convinced of anything in my life than that there is not only a great shortage now, but that there is going to be a greater shortage still, and perhaps the pressure may become very considerable and very serious indeed. I feel quite confident that that is the opinion of men in the Government who are responsible, and it makes me hope that people will not be quite so ready to carp at proposals which are directed solely and entirely to a larger production of food in our own country than we have at the present time.
    The hon. Member for West Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall) earlier in the evening seemed to be suspicious of the object of those who differed with him, and he suggested that they were chiefly anxious to get cheaper labour for the land. I can assure him there is not and never was the slightest ground for that suspicion. I will give an illustration of what I mean. I had a letter this morning from a farmer; it was written only yesterday, and it was in answer to a proposal which I had made
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    in public to the effect that the price of wheat being 62s. per quarter it would be a great inducement to farmers to sow spring wheat, which it was not too late to do when I made the proposal, if they could get a guarantee of at least 50s. per quarter for it. The letter I had from the farmer will show the spirit with which that class are animated. He said:—
    "I thank you for your proposal, I will grow fifty acres more at once, and I will do something more. Anything I get over the 50s. per quarter I will give one half to the Belgian Farmers Relief Fund and the other half to the relief of the rates and taxes in the district."
    That is the spirit in which farmers look at this matter. Another farmer wrote to me—I have not his letter with me but it was to this effect—that I knew as well as anybody that at this period of the year the crows are exceedingly busy. So they are. He went on to say that he had lost twenty-five acres of spring wheat last year as a result of their operations, but, after reading my letter, if the Government would give him the suggested guarantee, he would undertake to try it again. He added, "I shall be in a very great difficulty, because it is hard enough to get man labour at the present moment for sowing, and, as for getting man labour to scare crows, that would be impossible. I lost the whole of my spring wheat last year because I could get no one to scare crows, but if the Board of Education will let me have a couple of boys for a certain time—not very long—I will grow twenty-five more acres of spring wheat, and I should save it and secure a crop." There is another instance of the way in which the practical men are looking at this question, and of the way in which they are prepared to deal with it.
    In a case like this what are we to do, and what will the British people say that we ought to do? Go on teaching the school curriculum utterly regardless of the present crisis, at a time of great stress like this, with wheat at 60s. a quarter now, and, for all they know to the contrary, likely to be a great deal more? Which ought we to do—go on with the education without the least interference, or to use a little more boy labour for the purpose of securing a larger supply of food than we are doing at the present time? I have not a shadow of doubt that if the whole population could be polled on that question, they would say, by a majority of twenty to one, "Grow the food, of course," although I believe I put the majority at much too small a figure. What we want

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    to do is to increase the supply, and consequently to lower the price. If you have to choose, as the hon. Member said, between robbing them of their education or robbing them of their food, I am all for more and cheaper food, even if it is purchased at the cost of a little less education at the moment. That is all anybody is asking for. Even the hon. Member himself must have had some doubts as to whether he was quite right in making the speech that he did. I am going to make an appeal to the Minister for Education. I hope that we shall hear from him before this Debate is over that he is prepared to consider these proposals most sympathetically as a temporary thing. Nobody has asked for anything more, although if I were to say all that I think about it, I would say without any hesitation that I wish there were a great deal more excellent use of what is called technical education than some of the education which is given to the boys and girls at the present time, the consequence of which, in many parts of the country just now, is that after these girls have been brought up in some of your board schools you cannot get them for love or money to demean themselves, as they consider it, by milking a cow or helping the dairy supply and the dairy production of the country. Ever since I was a child I have remembered the old couplet, which applied in every village in the country:—
    "'Where are your going to, my pretty maid?'
    'Going a-milking, Sir,' she said."
    You do not find maids of that description now. Nowadays the maids want to play the piano, or read Shakespeare, or doing something of that kind. That is the kind of education of which I complain, and which I think is nothing but sheer mischief as compared with the technical education which could be given and which would add greatly to the wealth of the national life. I desire to ask one or two questions of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture. In the month of August last a Consultative Committee, consisting of a great number of practical agriculturists, nearly all of whom were well known to me, was appointed by the Board of Agriculture, but I have never heard that any Reports from that Committee had been laid upon the Table of the House of Commons. I am going to put these questions on the Paper, so that if he does not find it convenient to answer them to-night, perhaps
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    he will bear them in mind and give me an answer early next week. I want to know, first, whether any Report or Reports have been made to the President of the Board of Agriculture by the Agricultural Consultative Committee appointed by the President at that time; if so, do they contain any recommendations calculated to encourage and increase the growth of any article or articles of food, including wheat, within the United Kingdom? Secondly, whether they have made any recommendations for the purpose of increasing the supply of agricultural labour in districts where the dearth of it is now complained of and is becoming very serious? Thirdly, what was the purpose of such recommendations, if any, that have been made, and, if any have been made, when were they made, and will they be laid upon the Table, and, if so, when? They are all very simple questions that admit of an answer, and if the hon. Gentleman will tell me to-night that he will give them his serious consideration I shall be perfectly satisfied, because I should not dream of asking, without notice, questions of this kind of a, Minister who was not in a proper position to deal with them. I am much obliged to the House for the attention it has given me. I hope I have given no offence to anybody, but in all that I have said I have told them exactly what I think on the matter.
    The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of AGRICULTURE (Sir Harry Verney): I venture to intervene in this Debate for a few minutes partly to put, if I can, the attitude of the Board of Agriculture with regard to the employment of child labour raised by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), and partly because I do not find myself in entire agreement with the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I am particularly sorry not to be able to agree with one whose interest in agriculture is so sincere and genuine and whose knowledge of it is so encyclopædic, but, if I may, I would put one or two considerations before the House from a rather different point of view. I hope before I finish he will see that the Board are going to do what they can to establish something in the nature of women milkers, and although I cannot promise him that there will be any pretty maids in the Wimbledon Divison, I will do my best. Perhaps he will allow me, with regard to the series of questions he put to me just now, to delay

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    a very definite answer, not because I do not feel quite willing to answer, but because I think the head of the Department should be consulted first.
    For a few minutes I will endeavour to put before the House the attitude of the Board of Agriculture in this matter. Our own rather narrow point of view, looking at it from the point of view of the fanner, coincides, I think, with the larger and more patriotic point of view and I believe will coincide with the wishes and ideas of every Member of this House in whatever quarter of it he sits. It is this, that the work of the farms must be done. We cannot look forward, in this time of emergency, to the work of the farms not being done. It is not sufficient to say that children are not to do the work, which is a view taken by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil and some others. We at the Board of Agriculture have to put to ourselves the question, "Who is to do the work?" The attitude of the Board was briefly but fully explained in answer to a question put by the hon. Member for Carlisle (Mr. Denman) and perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I read it, because he may have forgotten it. The question my hon. Friend asked me was—
    "whether it is the attitude of the Board to encourage the organisation and use of all other available forms of labour in preference to withdrawing children from school?"
    and the answer I gave was in the affirmative. That being so, we come to the question of what other expedients are to be tried. There is the question of the employment of children. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for the Buckrose Division of Yorkshire (Sir Luke White) is reported in the paper this morning to have said that his advice to the farmers was that
    "they should take the boys and chance it."
    I do not know what my hon. Friend meant by "chance it." I do not think he meant that they were to go against the law, because I know he is a law-abiding citizen. I do not know whether he meant they were to take the chance of injuring the character and education of the children. In any case, the attitude of my hon. Friend cannot be said at present to be the attitude of the Board of Agriculture. We think that other expedients should be tried first. Having said that, it is the business of the Board to suggest what those expedients might be, remembering always that at the back of our minds is the policy
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    we all must adopt, that the land must be cultivated and that the cows must be milked.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: What are the other expedients?
    Sir H. VERNEY: I have only been speaking for a few minutes, and I am just coming to them. Expedient No. 1 is one which I do not doubt will commend itself to the right hon. Gentleman, because it was advocated in glowing terms by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) namely, to raise the wages of the agricultural labourer. That is the first expedient, and it is one which, in the opinion of some people, is all that is required. Some people think that if you raise the wages of the agricultural labourer the whole thing is done. That I confess is not the attitude of the Board. I do not think it is the attitude of any Member of this House, or of the hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. G. Roberts) who was quoted as having said something to that effect. There can be no doubt that if the wages of the agricultural labourer are raised, as was advocated by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and in the eloquent speech of the hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Prothero) that something, and a good deal will have been done to reduce the shortage that now exists.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: Where are they to come from? Do you mean men who know their business?
    Sir H. VERNEY: If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I am going as fully into the question as time permits. I suggest that is one expedient which would help to reduce the shortage. That cannot be denied. Suppose that does not meet it—and in my opinion it will not meet it, for so far as one can judge there will be a shortage however high the wages of the agricultural labourers are raised, and the shortage has been put by some people at anything from 10 to 12 per cent. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil quoted that figure, and I think it is not far wrong. There are people outside the House who do not believe a shortage exists, but given the shortage, what we ask of the farmers—I believe in this I shall have the sympathy of the right hon. Gentleman; it is not much—is that he should formulate his demands, that he should tell us where there is a shortage and what that shortage amounts to. The right hon.

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    Gentleman asked me what we were doing as regards consulting prominent agriculturists. Of course, the question of labour is one of the most important. We consulted the hon. Member for the Wilton Division (Mr. Charles Bathurst), as President of the Chamber of Agriculture, and Mr. Colin Campbell, as President of the Farmers' Union. With the co-operation of those two gentlemen, who represent the vast majority of the farming community, we decided that we ought to call upon the farmer to furnish a proof of this shortage in connection with the Labour Exchanges.
    I know that Labour Exchanges are not thought much of by agriculturists as a whole, but I would urge farmers in this emergency, because it is an emergency, to go to what is, after all, provided by the Government for dealing with the question of the shortage of labour, that is the Labour Exchanges. With the cordial co-operation of the President of the Chamber of Agriculture and the President of the Farmers' Union, meetings are being assembled in the course of the next few days in every county in order that farmers may state to representatives of the Labour Exchange what the shortage is and what it amounts to. The first thing to establish is that there is a shortage, and the next question is, how is it to be met? The first thing is to get the shortage explained and put before the country. Already in one or two counties, since these letters have gone out from the President of the Chamber of Agriculture and the the Farmers' Union, the farmers are making efforts to carry out the suggestion we have put before them, and I think we of the Board of Agriculture, and Members of the House of Commons, may take it that if the farmers do not care to come together and ask for a fresh supply of labour, the case is made out that the shortage is not very serious. But if, as I think is almost certain, in any county where there is any sort of shortage, the farmers take the trouble to come together and formulate their demands, we shall have at least something definite to go upon, and the shortage will be established.
    I assume, as the right hon. Gentleman assumed, that the shortage will be there, and I assume that the farmers will have put before the representatives of the Labour Exchanges their needs with regard to labour. The agricultural labourers do not exist. Then it is no use the farmer
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    saying, "I do not want anybody else," because if he cannot have an agricultural labourer and does not want anyone else, he will not get anyone at all. The agricultural labourer to a certain extent does not exist. Therefore his work has to be supplemented. I will suggest one or two expedients which I know those connected with agriculture will say are hopeless and no good, but I would ask that at least a trial should be given before they are condemned as out of the question. Of course, the first and most obvious source of labour is the town labourer. I know he is not fitted in the ordinary way for agricultural work; but still, there may be a few town labourers who would be fitted and would be willing, for a wage which will have to be agreed upon, to go into the country and work on the farm—those who in the past have been agricultural labourers and gone into the towns. There are a good many cases of, let us say, brickworks in which the brickworks have drawn upon the neighbouring agricultural labourers, almost entirely—men who used to be on the land—because of the better wages. Then there are the Belgians. There is a possibility, if it was thought desirable, of tapping Belgian, Dutch or Danish labour. There is the question of the possibility of anything in the way of Irish labour—not of increasing the number of Irish labourers, because that would be against the policy of my hon. Friends below the Gangway, but perhaps of bringing over those who would naturally come a few weeks earlier than they would otherwise have come.
    There is the possibility of getting boys over fourteen years of age from reformatory schools who might be willing and anxious to do work on the land. What I would put to the House is that though these suggestions may individually not be worth much, on the other hand, it may be that something will come out of them—the boys from reformatory schools, Irish labourers, the Belgian or Dutch or Danish labourers, labour from the brickworks and from the town. The farmers have no means to-day of getting in touch with any such labour. He has no power of knowing whether there may be in the town of Wolverhampton or Ipswich, or any other town, some men who would, if they could and if they had the opportunity, come out and work on the land, and it is for that reason that we appeal to farmers to give a trial to the Labour Exchanges, which alone are entitled and able to deal with such cases as these. That is why we, with the

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    cordial approval of those who lead in agriculture—of the Central Chamber and the Farmers' Union—ask in this emergency that farmers should co-operate with the Labour Exchanges, and should see, whether something cannot be done to get workers who otherwise would not be available. Supposing that source of labour has been tapped and well organised, and still there remains a shortage of agricultural labour in this country, then the right hon. Gentleman and some of his friends say there is nothing left for it but child-labour.
    Mr. CHAPLINmade an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Sir H. VERNEY: The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my next point, which is the question of women. He himself has written a letter to the "Morning Post," on the 8th February. I do not think anyone could put more eloquently or better than he has put the position for the employment of women, and I would venture to read one sentence from his excellent letter. Talking of women and agriculture, he says:—
    "We believe there is a grout opening for the resumption of this old practice, that certain work is of a character which is entirely suitable for women, and that immense advantages may be conferred both upon our national interests and upon the women themselves if a workable scheme can be developed."
    It seems to me that is a most hopeful line along which, again through the Labour Exchanges and through the many organisations which are quite willing and eager to take up this work, something may really be done to relieve the difficulty of labour in agricultural districts. But I can almost hear, for instance, the hon. Baronet (Sir F. Banbury) saying these women cannot and will not do the work which ought to be done on the land. I have got out some figures because the hon. Member (Mr. Whitehouse) has put a question down for next Monday for which the House will be grateful when they find the answer, because it brings out very clearly what women are actually doing to-day.
    Sir F. BANBURY: I have employed a woman on my farm.
    Sir H. VERNEY:I congratulate the hon. Baronet, and I hope all other farmers will be able to do the same. I will quote these figures because I think they are striking. If you take the women employed in agriculture, not being relatives of farmers, because the immense numbers of women who are relatives of farmers I am leaving
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    out of account—the number of women compared with men, excluding the men who are in charge of horses—the number of women in charge of horses is nil—these figures are from the Census of 1911—you get this extraordinary difference, that whereas in Northumberland the percentage of women working on the land to men is 30.92 per cent.—that is, 31 out of every hundred people working on the land in Northumberland are women—against that in the county of Bedford, whish is the worst, it is only five per cent. That is, for every 100 people working on the land of Bedfordshire only five women are working in that way. Take the same figures with regard to Scotland. In Scotland the number of women as compared with men is 41.3 per cent., and if you take a county like Wiltshire, where the demand for labour is extremely severe and where the labour is extremely hard to get, the number of women is only 1.23 per cent.
    Mr. FRANCE: Is that continuous work?
    Sir H. VERNEY: As far as I can make out it is continuous. These are women who are regularly employed. Casual workers and relatives of farmers are not included. When we find that in Scotland and Northumberland this vast proportion of women is actually doing the work which is wanted to be done in Wiltshire, it makes out a strong case for something to be done in Wiltshire and Bedfordshire where the proportion is low.
    Mr. OUTHWAITEmake an observation which was inaudible in the Reporters' Gallery.
    Sir H. VERNEY: If my hon. Friend will give me notice I think it is a matter which requires verifying. But, of course, the hon. Baronet, who knows Wiltshire, would be quite ready, no doubt, to pay such wages as would induce women to work in Wiltshire, as he is in favour of the scheme and no doubt pays his women something like £1 a week or what is necessary.
    Sir F. BANBURY: She does not work continuously.
    Sir H. VERNEY: No; but if she did the hon. Baronet would pay her a full and sufficient wage. If I have established that women can and do do the work in other parts of Great Britain, it remains for the farming community and the Board of Agriculture, in co-operation with the Labour Exchanges, with the relative of the right hon. Gentleman and those who

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    are very keen about this, and ready to take it up in every possible way, to see whether we cannot introduce into these counties where there is a great shortage of labour, women labour, to help in the matter. That being so, where is the necessity for child labour? What is it—and this question I should very much like the right hon. Gentleman to tell me—that a boy can do that a woman cannot do? Where is it that you wish to employ your children where you could not employ women? What are the jobs that a, boy is expected to do? He is supposed to milk, he scarces crows from the right hon. Gentleman's spring wheat, he tends sheep, hoes, feeds stock, leads horses fetching loads of bricks, and is also useful in the lambing season. These are jobs which every farmer is glad to have a boy to help him with.
    An HON. MEMBER: Twelve years of age?
    Sir H. VERNEY: Yes, or eleven. Take the most important of these—milking. I think the House will agree that a woman will milk better and quicker than a boy of twelve or thirteen. If you take feeding stock, I think a woman will feed stock more intelligently than a boy of thirteen. If you take the lambing season, I think the House will agree that a woman would be likely to be a better midwife for an old ewe than a boy. Then I come to what I believe is the real argument in the farmer's mind for the employment of boys. The real argument in the farmer's mind is that it is more convenient. You have your little boy on the spot; he is cheap; he wears more suitable clothes; he can be kicked—there he is, handy. I hope the right hon. Gentleman agrees there is nothing there offensive to the farmer. My whole life is spent among farmers. I agree it is more convenient. It is easier to say to a boy, "You are not going quick enough; hurry up!" and to go and push him along. I agree that his clothes are more convenient. He is cheaper, I know, and he is on the spot.
    Mr. CHAPLIN: He knows more.
    Sir H. VERNEY: Yes, but which of the jobs that I have put before the House does he know more about and would do better than a competent woman?
    Mr. CHAPLIN: He knows more about all of them I should think.
    Sir H. VERNEY: I should be the last to wish to say anything which would seem offensive to the farming community, because having, as I say, lived among them. I know and recognise that it is more convenient, and in every way it may be better from the farmer's point of view to employ boy labour. What I would put before the House is this: These are not times in which the farmer or any other class is merely looking after convenience. I said a night or two ago that there is no class more patriotic than the farmers. The farmer is not merely looking after what is convenient but what is best for the country as a whole, and it is because I believe this is his attitude, because I know it is his attitude, that I hope he will give a fair trial to every form of labour before resorting to child labour.
    6.0 P.M.
    Mr. PETO: The hon Baronet has in the latter part of his speech gone closely into the detail of what work these boys are required to do. I do not think the House as a whole is likely to be misled by some of the categories which he puts forward. For instance, in dealing with the question of tending sheep, it is really absurd to tell any body of men who have ever had anything to do with agriculture that a boy of twelve can be employed as a midwife for an old ewe. Where a boy comes in handy is when the shepherd has had a lot of night-work to do. He can then do all kinds of odd jobs during the day. I think a woman could not possibly be more unsuitably placed than in a turnip field, where the lambing sheds are usually put. A boy is obviously useful for that purpose. But the hon. Baronet left out of this category one of the very principal employments at present which is urgently lacking labour, and that is the question of getting in corn. A boy can perfectly well get along behind a harrow, and even where women are largely employed you do not find women doing harrowing, which is so necessary in the seeding season. I do not think it is necessary to go into these details. I do not think the hon. Baronet, and I am sure none of the earlier speakers on the other side of the House, realised that this is a question of what is to be done in an emergency. Hon. Members talk about entirely altering the habits of the slowly growing-up generation, and they compare the children in England and Scotland, but they will find that in different parts of the United Kingdom there are different conditions to be dealt with. You are not going, during the

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    months of the War, to reverse all the processes of farming. I am sure that the hon. Baronet knows that perfectly well, and in putting forward these specious arguments against the employment of children on leaving school he is really misleading the House. The hon. Baronet said that he did not want to say anything offensive to farmers, but when I recollect that he put forward as one of the principal reasons why farmers wished to employ boys was that they could kick them, I think it will be felt that he was not very sympathetic to farmers.
    Sir H. VERNEY: I ought not to have used the word "kick." It clearly is an offensive term, and I wish to withdraw it and to substitute whatever is the equivalent of saying to a boy, "Now, hurry up!" It makes him go. But that is something which you could not say to a woman.
    Mr. PETO: Of course, I do not wish to allude to that any more. I will admit that it was a slip of the tongue. But in referring to the way in which we can recruit this labour there were only two categories mentioned for dealing with the emergency now before the House. One is Irish labour, and I agree that there might be a considerable amount of Irish labour which is not required in that country, particularly in the South of Ireland, where recruiting has not been so large a factor in denuding the country of labour as it has been in Wiltshire, where, as the hon. Gentleman says, we are so short of labour. Another suggestion was to use reformatory school labour. The hon. Member for Norwich (Mr. G. Roberts) quoted only one figure. He said that in the whole of the educational district of West Sussex there were sixty-seven boys of an average age of thirteen years and three months. They were obviously of the class the hon. Member for Oxford University called "dunces of exemption." They are over thirteen years of age, and if they have not passed the highest standard they could go away from school. I would like the House just to remember what the First Lord of the Admiralty said last week. He said, in another connection, it was necessary to remind the House that after all we are at war. Is it not very necessary for hon. Members who are bringing up this question to remember that fact, and to remember also that this is purely a question of emergency? The hon. Member for Norwich, and also the
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    hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Keir Hardie), suspect us of a deep-laid plot to sweep away all our educational rules, and they seem to suggest that once we got in the thin end of the wedge children would be exempt from school attendance at the age of twelve years. I do not think I could do better than read the resolutions passed by the Central Chamber of Agriculture. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Chaplin) read the first resolution. The second is:—
    "The Committee, however, are of opinion that, so far as possible, such children should subsequently return to school at the earliest possible period."
    The third resolution is:—
    "The Committee make these suggestions in the hope that children so exempted may be enabled at some subsequent period to attend such continuation classes, or agricultural or other suitable schools, as the local education authorities can provide."
    The Central Chamber of Agriculture is the most important representative agricultural body we have got in this country, and I think it is very unfair to try to contend that there is really very much more in this than appears on the surface. The question is as to how we are to produce the food so absolutely necessary in this War period. A great deal has been said about the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for the Wilton Division (Mr. C. Bathurst) on this question when he first called public attention to it in the House on 28th August last year. I want to deal for a moment with that, and with what the President of the Board of Education has said about the Prime Minister's answer upon the same occasion. It is quite true that the hon. Member for the Wilton Division in his question suggested the employment of boys between eleven and fourteen years of age in the necessary fanning operations during the autumn and winter. It is quite true that, in order to secure next year's wheat and other necessary farm crops, the Prime Minister answered:—
    "I will bear in mind the hon. Member's suggestion. It would appear that the matter is well within the discretion of the local authorities, who have already had their attention called to it by the Board of Education."
    The other day a deputation was introduced to the President of the Board of Education by the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division (Mr. Anderson). In reply to the deputation the President said:—
    "It was perfectly true that words were used by the Prime Minister and himself last August when harvesting was commencing which had encouraged farmers to believe that the Government would look rather easily on exemption of the children from school attendances at the commencement of the War. They were naturally anxious to bring in as many recruits as could be found, and they were also anxious that the harvesting should

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    be carried on satisfactorily. The words they applied to a particular emergency had been misconstrued as applicable to the whole farming year."
    I wish to put to the House what possible difference can there be in the emergency then and the present time—the commencement of the spring farming operations of the year? There is just this difference: Whereas in August last the President of the Board of Education says that he and the Prime Minister were anxious to induce recruiting when perhaps a hundred thousand, or perhaps much less than that, had offered their services to the country, and whereas now the shortage of labour is infinitely greater, the only conclusion I can draw from the right hon. Gentleman's words is that they held out these hopes to farmers in the autumn in order to induce them to let their absolutely necessary labourers join the Colours, and now that they have actually lost the labour, and the country has got the services of the men as soldiers, they are going to turn round and say that the emergency is past, and that their words must not go beyond the last harvest season. I think that is a very unworthy way of dealing with part of a great national problem.
    The hon. Member for Norwich said that he noticed a great change of attitude on the part of the President of the Board of Agriculture on this question. I know that it is so, and I do ask the right hon. Gentleman not to emulate the part of the character in the "Pilgrim's Progress" who is known as Mr. Facing-both-Ways. Let him not attempt to take that part in dealing with the local authorities, but, on the other hand, let him give them at least some more definite lead than when he spoke in the autumn to the farmers. To say that they should have boy labour if they wished, and then to talk to the deputation of the words applying only to the autumn, is not quite consistent. The people of the country do not know what the policy of the Board of Education is. They do not think that the Board of Education themselves realise the great importance of this problem. It was very well pointed out at a meeting of the Joint Buckinghamshire and Berkshire and Oxfordshire Chamber of Agriculture that the employment of boy labour on the farms is not necessarily at all a cessation of education. One member of the chamber said:—
    "When the matter came before the county council it was pointed out that the boys were let off from school in order to learn woodwork on the farms. Would they not be learning farming if let off from school?"
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    It has been said that what the farmers wanted was cheap labour. What they wanted was not necessarily cheap labour, but labour which would be very useful for a lot of jobs, such as milking and harrowing. That is why these boys are wanted. It is pointed out that it is not necessarily a cessation of their education at all. The hon. Member for Norwich said that he and some Members of his party had been to Denmark to study the agricultural system there. As the result of what they saw they wanted an extension of education and co-operation. I should say in parentheses that I hope hon. Members of the Labour party will be as keen about co-operation in this country as they are about the question of education. The hon. Member for Norwich did not refer to the fact that in Denmark they have a perfect system not of half-time work, but of half-time work on the farms and part-time continuation of education up to fifteen or sixteen years of age. I am not sure that it does not go beyond that. That is what we have been asking for.
    Reference has been made to the money spent on technical schools, but I would point out that it is almost impossible to get anything for education so far as the higher branches of agriculture are concerned. I would like to say that I am perfectly certain it is doing a very great injustice to farmers to say that there is any attempt to undermine the educational rules of the country as a whole by a sort of side wind; but I am quite sure that farmers will be perfectly willing to co-operate with the hon. Baronet in what he has suggested as to meetings and so forth so far as they can. Naturally, as they are a very scattered people, and are very busy at this time of the year, meetings would be troublesome things, but farmers would be willing to co-operate in the manner suggested in order to find out everything in reference to the shortage of labour, and all the rest of it. I would like to point out to hon. Members who have taken the other view that the chambers of agriculture, where they have met in the country, have already put the matter from their own point of view almost exactly as the hon. Baronet has done. In the case of the Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire Chamber, the actual proposal before the meeting was—
    "That in view of the shortage of farm labour in many parts of the country, it is desirable that boys of twelve years and upwards should be allowed to work on farms during the period of the War, and that such work should count as school attendance.

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    That refugees should be employed as far as possible on suitable terms.
    And that resort should be made as far as possible to Labour Exchanges and labour-saving macninery."
    Every alternative that has been suggested by the hon. Baronet has been considered already at these meetings of the chambers of agriculture. I am quite sure that they have not the slightest desire to put any difficulty whatever in the way, and that where and if suitable labour can be found they will be willing to take it in preference merely to employing boy labour. A reference has been made to Wiltshire. I know that the very great shortage which exists there and in some of the other southern counties is, it has been said, probably due in the main to the fact that they do not pay sufficiently high wages in these places to agricultural labourers. There is another factor. I am dealing solely with the problem of the moment. I do not take it that this is a general Debate on agricultural wages, or on our educational system. I am dealing with the problem of the moment, and there is a very much simpler answer than that. It is not only the splendid way in which the men have responded to recruiting by enlisting in Wiltshire, but that in Wiltshire and the adjoining counties we have an enormously greater proportion of these large military camps than we have in any other group of counties. We have them in Wiltshire, Hampshire, and Dorsetshire. We know that all these camps, owing to the methods of the War Office, have simply drained all the labour whether suitable or not at, I admit, enormous wages, and they have naturally taken all the labour, not only from the farms but also from the roads, and the Wiltshire road authorities cannot get any labour to repair the roads which have been cut up owing to the movements of troops and of material to and from the camps, except through the Government contractors.
    That shows how short the labour is. It is an urgent problem. It does not matter whether the men have gone to fight in the trenches, or to build the camps. They have gone in connection with the War, and farmers are practically bare of labour. We have got to deal with a situation of this kind as an emergency question. I think that this Debate is not very creditable to us as a nation—one of a great alliance who are fighting for our lives. When I was in France last year going up and down the country from the west right to the borders of Belgium, time after time, on long and
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    tedious journeys, lasting three and four days, I had ample opportunity of seeing what they were doing there in the farming line right through the harvest. And to think that we are debating for hours, as to whether we are in this great emergency to break these wonderful education laws that have been set up even to this minute extent of giving to farmers the temporary assistance which they require in order to get in their spring crops! When I recognise that that is what is going on here, and we see that in France practically every able-bodied man has gone, and the whole of the farming occupations are being carried on by children, women, and a few old men to help them, I say that it is not doing what the Chancellor of the Exchequer tells us we must do if we go into an alliance of this kind, that is, putting in the whole of our resources We are not doing it if we are, as I think, wasting time in discussing such minute questions, and taking the view which is taken by extreme educationists in this matter.
    Sir WILLIAM BYLES: I am sure that the House must feel interested as I have been in the several speeches made by the advocates of what I cannot still but consider as a bad cause. First of all, our blood was made to curdle by the references of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Chaplin) to approaching starvation; but then he fell back with satisfaction on the easy salvation which can be brought to us by the eleven-year-old child. All the speeches on that side have looked at the question which we have been discussing this afternoon from the farmers' point of view. It needs also to be regarded from the educational point of view. I do not claim to be an expert either in education or in agriculture. My attention has been drawn to this subject by two considerations. First, what appears to me to be the danger to the children, and second, the danger to the nation of allowing the children to grow up, shall I say, as clodhoppers instead of scholars. The local education authorities in many of these agricultural counties desire to suspend, and are indeed suspending their own regulations, setting aside in the interests of the farmers, who are very often themselves, the laws which they themselves have made in the interests of the children. It is quite clear that the process is going on especially in some counties. Little lads of eleven or twelve or thirteen are taken away from their

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    books, the wholesome discipline of the school, and the pursuit of the three R's, that they may be taught to plough and sow and reap and mow. The alleged justification of this is, first, that it is necessary to grow more wheat on English land; second, that the supply of imported wheat is restricted owing to war conditions; third, that many agricultural labourers have gone to the War; fourth, that the deficiency arising from this fact must be supplied; and fifth, that this can be most easily and cheaply done by raiding the schools
    That I understand to be the farmers' case. I am for the children. I do not want them taken away from school to scare crows. These are emergency times, no doubt, and I recognise frankly that the farmers may be in some temporary difficulty. These are times when men must work and fight, and women must weep, but we might at least save the child. What I want to put before the House is not the farmers' point of view but the child's point of view. The State has given to these children a charter—education, free, universal, compulsory. We have no right in this left-hand sort of way to deprive them of the benefits of that charter. Even their parents are forbidden by law to exploit them for wages. Until they are fourteen they ought to be at school and not at work. It would need very strong grounds indeed to tamper with that right for which the children themselves cannot stick up, and it ought to be impossible to tamper with it except by Act of Parliament. The Act of 1870 was, of course, the beginning of our great educational structure. It was the gift to the nation of my old friend, Mr. Forster. I wish that he were here to-day. I know well enough if he were on that bench, which he adorned so long, what he would say. What I regard as the most alarming aspect of the controversy is the encouragement given to it by the present Minister of Education, or, at any rate, the connivance or acquiescence of the Board of Education in what is going on. I know that he will answer that the law gives the local authorities the power to make this by-law. So it does, but, with great respect to my right hon. Friend, I would suggest that a strong Minister would take care that the authorities should not stretch the law, as I think they are doing.
    I know well the evil of boy labour. Child employment can be charged against the
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    boroughs as well as against the rural districts. I confess that even the borough which I represent is a sinner in this matter. The municipality at present are considering new by-laws to cope with the evil. There are by-laws by which half-time can be worked in the mills in Yorkshire and Lancashire. But there is this difference between the case of the mill-owners and that of the farmers, that the education authorities in the former case have made low age by-laws, and are acting on them, whereas in the rural districts the authorities have made by-laws and are proposing to ignore them. They are proposing to break the law which they themselves have made. I maintain that it is the, duty of the Board of Education to compel them to perform the duty, to hold local inquiries, and, if necessary, to proceed by mandamus. The Government have said that they are not going to take any such action. They are going to leave it to the discretion of the local authorities. That is my complaint against the Education Department. Let them make the local authorities obey the by-laws which they themselves have made.
    It is argued that farming is really a trade, and that to work on a farm is really technical education or continuation instruction. Very well, then let it be made so in fact. Are the farmers willing to make it an apprenticeship, and to put it under education supervision, and to let the education authority be satisfied week by week that the child is necessarily beneficially and continuously employed in agriculture? Those are the words of the Act which protect the child. The first employment after leaving school should be of an educational character, and if the boy is called upon to leave school at an early age the need is more urgent for him, and it should be more easy to accomplish. An important question which has been pretty well discussed, and which I do not want to dwell upon, is how far the shortage of labour can be supplied without drawing upon the children. We have had a good deal of sympathy and some very helpful and practical suggestions from the representative of the Board of Agriculture dealing with the matter. It has been put by the hon. Member for Oxford University that this question of the shortage of labour is partial, or, as he said, "spotted." In one district the children are badly hit owing to enlistment; in others, they are not suffering at all. By organisation, good will, and

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    various devices suggested, by bringing in Irish labour, and by organising labour within reach, probaly the difficulty might be overcome in many rural districts and in many counties.
    But apart from all those devices there is the obvious resource, obvious to us on this side at any rate, of paying decent wages. The farmer's plea for going to the school-house to employ labour is precisely the German plea for violating Belgium—Necessitas non habet legem. I do not believe in that. I say that if you make the life of an agricultural labourer attractive, then it will attract. There is plenty of labour available, plenty of adult labour, if you pay for it, though not, perhaps, at 6d. a day. "Go to the Labour Exchanges," is advice which has been given here this afternoon. The hon. Member for Oxford University seems to think that the Labour Exchanges will have nothing but plumbers out of work; but I believe, that the Board of Trade will tell us that there are tens of thousands of men who are seeking employment, many of them country born, and who must be quite able quickly to adapt themselves to such work as is required on a farm. The suggestion was put forward by that veteran defender of agriculture, the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Chaplin), that women could be employed. The suggestion is one that I need not dwell upon, though certainly it is better than employing children. Why are women to be restricted in agricultural labour to picking hops? Farmers already use them in times of emergency for winnowing, for binding sheaves in harvest, and I believe they do a lot of dairy work. Women are always crying out for a career, and therefore no opposition need be expected from them when you offer it.
    The depletion of labour by recruiting, I am bound to admit, is correct; no doubt the difficulty, the sudden difficulty, has put the farmers to great inconvenience. But there has been a slow and steady depletion in progress for many years, which has not led to this outcry. How often have we been hearing of and mourning the exodus of labourers from the country to the town, where they depress industrial wages. Now is the time to correct that tendency. How has it been brought about? By low wages and dirty cottages. How is that tendency to be reversed? By higher wages and by providing decent homes, and thus restoring the village life which we have lost. If the price of wheat has risen from 30s. to
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    40s. and to 60s., surely a pound of that rise belongs of right to the labour which has produced it. In the last wheat harvest it was estimated that there were 7,000,000 quarters. The price has risen since then £1 a quarter, so that from this seven millions of money there is some room to raise the wages of the labourers who have helped to produce that seven millions. What has the Board of Education been saying to the local education authorities? "Do as you please; it is your business, not ours." That is the sort of tone. I say that it is clearly the duty of the Minister of Education to see that the local education authorities carry out the Education Acts and obey their own by-laws. I confess to being somewhat surprised that my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education should appear to favour these things, after the circular which he issued himself some months ago and after the War had begun. It is a memorable circular; in which he seems conspicuously to realise his duty. So much was I struck with it that I culled a sentence or two from it, which will not take many seconds to read to the House. These are the Minister's own words in that circircular:—
    "We can keep the system of education going."
    Another:—
    "The welfare and health of these children are an essential condition of national stability, most of all in a national stress."
    One more:—
    "Let us seize the chance of giving to the children a longer education—"
    The PRESIDENT of the BOARD Of EDUCATION (Mr. J. A. Pease): Hear, hear.
    Sir W. BYLES: I am glad to hear those words from the Minister of Education now—
    "a longer education, a fuller training for the work by which, when peace is restored, the wastage of war may be supplied, and the wealth of nations renewed."
    Let him live up to his own words; let him screen and shelter the children; let him take care that they are not deprived of the full benefits of the many Acts which Parliament has passed for them. May I add one sentence? If the fathers have gone to the War, many, alas, never to return, in this House of Commons, wherever we sit, it behoves us the more to cherish the child. The last year at school, I have no doubt it is the experience of others, certainly it is my own, is the best year. I have found it so. Shall we deprive these children of that

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    year, when, if ever, the intellectual and spiritual impulse may be awakened in them—some ambition to lead a higher life, if not a more honourable one, than that of the ploughman or clodhopper.
    Mr. MOUNT: I do not think I need trouble to refute the arguments of the last speaker, who seems to think that this demand for child labour comes from farmers alone, in their own interests. It cannot be better refuted than by referring to the speech of the hon. Baronet who represents the Board of Agriculture in this House. I should like to point out—if I could persuade Members opposite, who seem to think that farmers in their own interests are asking for this—that it is not child labour the farmers want, but adult labour. They do not want child labour, because the work which a man does is far more valuable than the work which children do. There is a saying in my district, that "one boy is one boy, two boys half a boy, and three boys no boy at all." I think that is very true. I wish to say a word or two in regard to what the hon. Baronet, who represents the Board of Agriculture in this House, has said. He has pointed to expedients which might be resorted to to obtain labour. First of all, he alluded to the question of Labour Exchanges. There is one great argument which, in my opinion, knocks out the probability of any great help being received from that source, and that is the shortage of cottages in country districts. We had an interesting discussion the other evening on a Motion by the hon. Member for the Attercliffe Division on the question of prices, in which it was pointed out that as a result of the War a large number of men have gone from country districts to enlist, and that, where there is a shortage of cottages, the wives and families of those men wanted, rightly, to remain in the cottages they occupied. If you are going to obtain labour from the Labour Exchanges, unless you get unmarried men, who, as a rule enlist, and you obtain married men, then there are no cottages in which to put them. In my opinion this question cannot be solved by the use of Labour Exchanges. Another expedient which the hon. Gentleman recommended was the increased employment of women, especially in milking.
    There is one point in regard to the employment of women, and it is that women formerly did a great deal of dairy work.
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    Dairying now is in a very different position from what it was then. At that time farmers did not send milk to London, and milking has now to be done in many districts at four or five o'clock in the morning. No doubt you could get women to rise at six, seven or eight in the morning to do the milking, but I do not believe you would get them up at four or five o'clock in order that the dairy farming interests may go on. For these reasons I ask the hon. Baronet who represents agriculture in this House to try and stiffen a little the back of the, President of the Board of Education, and ask him to look with a lenient eye on those education authorities who are not prepared to pat into force their education by-laws under existing conditions. It is purely a temporary measure, and it is not asked for in the interests of agriculture so must as in the interests of the nation, in order that we may get our food supplies assured. I received this morning by post circulars from the Board of Agriculture. One advocated the increase of land for spring wheat. We are now getting to a very busy time. The farmers have been delayed by a very wet season; every moment that can be spared, if we get any dry weather, is wanted in order that the land may be got ready for the spring corn. We cannot wait to educate women to follow the plough or follow the harrow. We want something done at once. That is the reason why in the interests not of agriculture alone, but in the interests of the nation, I hope that these by-laws in many cases may be relaxed.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon—I regret I do not see him in his place now—delivered one of his good-natured but vigorous addresses which I think charm the whole House. Although he expressed very strong views, I do not think in his expression of them he had the slightest feeling of resentment. I wish, however, to refer to one thing which I think should not be passed over without some reference. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think we were not performing our duty in raising this question at all, and he said in terms that in the time of war it was not the business of this House to spend its time discussing any such question. The same line was taken by the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto). I reply to those remarks, and to remarks of a similar nature which fell from other Members opposite, by referring them to the speech delivered

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    only two nights ago by the Noble Lord the Member for Hitchin (Lord R. Cecil), in which he said that every piece of emergency legislation or emergency action that was proposed in this House ought to be subjected to the most careful scrutiny.
    Lord ROBERT CECIL: Hear, hear.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: The Noble Lord endorses that, and I hope he will accept me as a very humble ally, and on this occasion I propose to enrol myself under his banner and to follow his advice. There have been during the last few years a most remarkable number of official investigations and inquiries all concerned with the question of child labour, and particularly of boy labour. All those official inquiries—conducted usually by experts—have been unanimous in stating that we require not less education for our youths but more, not less discipline and control but much more, not any relaxation of the laws affecting compulsory education but a much greater extension of those laws. In view of all those inquiries and of the decisions we have come to, and the conclusions that I believe men of all parties have come to, both in this House and in the country on the general question of education, I think at this time, above all times, we ought to be most careful to take no steps which in future may lead to very disastrous results, and may present us in a few years time with an extension of our social problems.
    That is why I desire warmly to endorse the proposals that have been made, and some which are of a very constructive character, for trying every other possible reasonable expedient before attempting to use for any agricultural work children who are still under a statutory obligation to attend school. I believe if those alternative measures are tried, that the necessity for the employment of school children will not arise. I desire to refer to the suggestions that were made in, if I may say so, the very brilliant and witty speech of the hon. Baronet (Sir H. Verney) who represents the Board of Agriculture in this House. The proposal that wages should be increased has met, during the whole course of this Debate, from both sides, with general approval. That is not a matter that need be left to the future. It is a remedy that can be acted upon immediately, and if acted upon immediately would lead, I think, to immediate results. In a time when there is great competition for adult labour,
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    obviously the trade, the industry, which is least well paid, and where the conditions sometimes are the least satisfactory, would be the first to feel that competition and demand.
    The hon. Baronet made a number of other suggestions, as to which I should like to offer some comments. The chief of the proposals that he made, I think, was relating to the use of women labour and women at farm work. It has been done in some agricultural districts, and in the North to a very remarkable extent, but, as was shown, in other counties it has not been tried at all. I would like to submit these considerations to my hon. Friend, regarding this special point. It is, I think, obvious that women cannot be engaged for the same hours and for the same kind of agricultural work that men can. It is not possible for them to go in the early hours of the morning and remain until evening doing precisely the kind of work that men do. But many women could go for certain hours of the day and for certain definite appointments of agricultural work. The point I wish to put is whether the organisations which he contemplates setting on foot, and the committee he proposes to set up, and the system he proposes to organise with the Labour Exchanges, could not apply themselves to the details of this problem, and so make it possible by voluntary co-operation in the agricultural districts, through the work of the committees, and through advice and through organisation, for the services of women to be offered in this restricted way for certain hours of the day and for certain special cases of labour. It appears to me there is no difficulty in the voluntary organisation of the available labour on those lines.
    The question of the Belgians has also been referred to. I regret that the hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Prothero) is not now in his place, because he stated, and he was under a misapprehension in so stating, that the Belgian labour was not available and that the Labour Exchanges knew nothing about the occupations and capabilities of the refugees in this country. The fact is, that the Labour Exchanges have the whole of the available information respecting the refugees. Their occupations have been classified and their names and former addresses and present addresses have been printed, and they are available at the headquarters of every committee receiving refugees, and they are available at the offices of the Registrar-General, and they

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    are available at the whole of the Labour Exchanges. I would add that the Labour Exchanges for some months now have been regularly printing a list of the refugees who desire work and particulars of the work that they were competent to perform, so that no difficulty exists on the point if farmers will go to the machinery provided by Parliament and avail themselves of the information which is offered to them. There was one other suggestion which my hon. Friend made, and which I listened to with less satisfaction, and that was the suggestion he made concerning the use of boys in reformatories for farm labour. My hon. Friend did not seem to be aware that for many years farm work has been one of the chief industries to which boys from many of the industrial schools have been sent, but the problem of the reformatory boy is a very special problem in this connection. A Committee sat recently to investigate the whole question of reformatories, and they had a considerable amount of very weighty evidence showing the disposal of those boys, who in many cases had neither parents nor guardians, to distant farms was sometimes a system which lent itself to grave abuses, and many suggestions were made with a view to preventing those abuses in future.
    Sir H. VERNEY: What I said was, and the hon. Member who is an expert on this question will tell me if I am wrong, that a certain number of those boys were annually sent away to Canada, and that in an emergency of this sort we might be able to keep them for our own work.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: No doubt some are sent to Canada, but the right policy, I suggest, is for each case to be considered on its merits. At the Committee to which I have referred there was a considerable amount of evidence produced to show that the practice of sending reformatory boys, who perhaps had had an extensive manual training fitting them for some other occupation, to distant farms at very low wages, had been a very important factor in depressing the wages of agricultural labourers and keeping them at their present level. I do not wish to labour that point, but only to call the attention of my hon. Friend to it. I want to make an appeal for co-operation between the Government Departments concerned in this very important question. The President of the Board of Education recently issued, in accordance with the promise he made in
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    answer to some questions, a copy of the correspondence which has taken place between the Board of Education and certain education authorities, who applied for permission for the statutory law to be broken.
    That White Paper has not apparently had a very wide circulation yet, even amongst Members of this House, but I desire to ask the President of the Board certain questions respecting it. The first is with reference to this point of co-operation with the other Departments concerned. Here is a White Paper containing the correspondence of the President with the education authorities. The line which the President took in that correspondence, though obviously a line of great sympathy with education, and showing great zeal and interest in the welfare of the children, was not a very decided line, and did not give any very vigorous leadership to the education authorities concerned. The President's communication in each case rather took the line of inviting the education authority to consider each case on its merits, and was rather willing that the law should be broken, or rather willing not to advise prosecution in case the law-was broken, if it were due in the opinion of the education authority to reasonable circumstances. But throughout the whole of this correspondence, I cannot find that there is any reference whatever to the activities of the Board of Agriculture or to any of the other Departments of the Government which are, in some degree, affected by this question, and I should like to put this point to the President.
    Mr. PEASE: In previous communications I directed the local authorities to put themselves into communication with the Board of Trade and with the Board of Agriculture in order that they might get into direct communication with the Labour Exchanges and the Board of Agriculture.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I desire to put the case fairly. I do not wish in any way to misrepresent the action of my right hon. Friend, which I have already described as being one of great sympathy. It is true that there is a reference to an inquiry which is being made by the Board of Trade, but the point I was going to put is this, why did not the Board of Education, and why does not the Board of Education to-day, submit to those education authorities for their guidance, those constructive proposals which have been placed before

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    the country for the first time to-day, or before this House by the representative of the Board of Agriculture?
    Mr. PEASE: It is far more important that they should go direct to the Board of Agriculture and to the Board of Trade and get the knowledge from them.
    7.0 P.M.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I am very satisfied if the result of my right hon. Friend's advice to the education authorities will be to place themselves in communication with the Departments actively working, and will get them to take the advice of those Departments. I would remind the President that there are a great number of education authorities who receive his official advice in this White Paper who did not receive any reference whatever to either the Board of Agriculture or to the Board of Trade, and who, if they had not learnt it from other sources, would have remained in entire ignorance of the fact that those two Departments of the State were taking any action. I pass from that point to raise a few other matters with the President of the Board of Education, and in so doing I am sure he will acquit me of any desire to be critical in any respect. In answer to some questions two or three weeks ago, the President was good enough to state that he would endeavour to ascertain how many children were being withdrawn by the education authorities in connection with this emergency. In order that we may know how great the problem is, and how far the law is being broken, I should like to ask whether he can now give the House any figures or any estimate of the number of children who have been withdrawn at the age of eleven, twelve, or thirteen from any further education.
    I would earnestly remind the House that one of the serious features of the present agitation for withdrawing children from school is that it is not confined to agriculture. There is a movement to withdraw children for purposes other than agriculture, for other forms of industrial work. Take, for instance, the education authority for Stafford. The correspondence with that authority is included in the White Paper. The Stafford Education Authority required permission to withdraw children in defiance of the by-laws for the purpose of their going into the local factories, and there is a petition from the Darlaston bolt and nut manufacturers asking for boys of school age to take the places of men who have gone to the War. The
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    services of these children are asked for in factories that are engaged in tuning out military and naval goods. The correspondence with this education authority is not complete. The President, on receiving this unusual application, naturally asked for further information. That further information was sent, including a petition of the local manufacturers to be allowed to receive these children into their factories. But I cannot find the final reply or any further reply of the President included in the correspondence. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend what was his final advice in reply to this extraordinary request?
    Mr. PEASE: What I did in this particular case was to send down into the district one of His Majesty's inspectors with directions to explain exactly what the law was and why it was impossible for us to allow any breach of it to be committed. I am very glad to say that in this particular case I had the co-operation of the War Office, who did not put any pressure at all on this firm to employ boy labour on the grounds which they urged.
    Mr. WHITEHOUSE: I am very much obliged to my right hon. Friend for his statement, which I am sure the House has heard with great satisfaction. There is included in the White Paper some correspondence with the Lincolnshire Education Authority. That authority asked for the services of school children, but not because of a shortage of agricultural labour, but for the support of the homes where the parents of the children had enlisted. Unhappily, the State can make no recompense to those homes in the way of removing the sorrow that comes upon them when the heads of the homes fall in the War. But the State has done what it can to provide for the dependants of those who enlist, or fall in the War. It is, therefore, very unjustifiable for any authority to represent to the Board of Education that the wages of children of eleven, twelve or thirteen years of age are necessary in order to supply the missing wages of the fathers who have gone to the War. I think this request was somewhat discreditable, and I very much regret that the official reply of the Board did not point out that these were not proper grounds upon which to ask for the law of the land to be overridden. I wish to refer also to the correspondence with the Kent Education Authority. Three days after war was declared this authority

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    required permission to withdraw children from school for a very unusual purpose. Apparently, when the chief constable said the children were required, the head teachers were to be at liberty to allow children to be taken instantly from school for service on the roads. I cannot conceive what kind of service this is. I hope the President will inquire further into this and the other cases I have mentioned, because I have cited them, not with any desire to be critical, but in order to show that there is a very serious tendency generally to weaken the law of the land respecting the attendance of children at school, and to use the children for all sorts of purposes during hours when they should be at school. For my own part I cannot help feeling that, to-day especially, we ought to do all we can to see to it that the coming generation is one of healthy, vigorous, well-educated, noble men and women.
    Colonel YATE: The question to which I wish particularly to refer is that of cadet training forming part of the curriculum of all secondary and continuation schools. I may mention that the hon. Baronet the Member for Sunderland (Sir Hamar Greenwood) was to have supported me in this matter, but I have just received a telegram saying that military duties prevent his attendance here to-day. I mention secondary and continuation schools purposely in this matter, because physical drill is already a compulsory subject in all elementary schools. While I agree that we might well copy our Australian and New Zealand cousins, and institute junior cadet training for all boys between twelve and fourteen years of age in our elementary schools, yet I acknowledge that something is being done. Physical drill is a compulsory part of the education in elementary schools, and if it were only properly taught it would probably be quite sufficient for boys of that age. But the physical drill in elementary schools is not properly taught at the present moment, and this I may say is owing to the lax administration of the Board of Education. Members who are acquainted with educational administration will know that in elementary schools only one hour per week is allotted to physical training, and that is generally divided into two lessons of half an hour each. All Members will probably agree that physical training should have at least an hour a day and not an hour a week.
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    Again, the lessons are often given by teachers who are not qualified in the subject, and the exercises are rarely seen by any inspector. I submit that the inspection of the physical development of our children is just as important as the inspection of their mental development. I regret to say, however, that the inspection of physical development has been sadly neglected up to the present time. Moreover, in some cases, you see classes of boys being taught their drill by women instructors. Surely our boys ought to have men instructors of their own. From the circumstances I have cited it will be seen that the question of physical drill has not been taken seriously in our elementary schools. The Board of Education has full authority to see that its present regulations on the subject are properly carried out. For these reasons I ask the President to see that proper instructors are appointed in those cases where the regular masters cannot give the required instruction, and that inspectors are appointed to see that the instruction is properly given. I agree that nothing much can be done at present when so many school teachers are away at the War, but I ask that proper orders may be given so that when the War is concluded we may have proper instructors and inspectors for all our elementary schools. I think that all Members will agree that the physical instruction in our elementary schools should be made just as obligatory as the mental instruction. I trust that this question will be looked into by the Board.
    I turn now to the question of secondary schools. We know that in all our grammar schools throughout the country great progress has been made in the matter of physical development by the voluntary formation of cadet corps and officers' training corps. The point I specially wish to bring forward is that in the county council secondary and continuation schools, which are immediately under the control of the Board of Education, nothing whatsoever has been done to further the cause of physical education or physical development, with the result that we are gradually losing the physique of our race. Nothing has brought this more clearly to light than the enlistment experiences in the present War. It was stated in the House the other day that in some districts the number of objections amounted to 30 per cent. of those presenting themselves for enlistment. I do not know what

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    districts those were, but I do know that in Leicestershire, the county with which I am more immediately concerned and of which I can speak from personal experience, out of the total number of recruits who presented themselves for enlistment from the commencement of the War at the beginning of August last up to the end of the year, no less than 15½ per cent. were rejected on the spot as unfit. Of those that were passed, and sent to join their unit, another 12 per cent. were rejected as unfit to stand the training. Consequently, in Leicester, we have the known percentage of 27½ rejected as unfit, in addition, remember, to those men who knew that they could not come up to the standard and never presented themselves for enlistment at all. What that number in the country is, of course, we cannot guess, but we all believe it to be very large. I know that in the General Annual Report of the British Army for 1912, it is stated that in the six years, from 1906 to 1911, nearly 40 per cent. of the men who offered themselves were rejected on physical grounds before attestation, and that in addition 3½ per cent. were rejected after attestation. Remember, the standard required was much higher then than the standard required now. It just shows how few men were able to come up to it.
    It is not only in the standard of height that our men fail at the present time, but also in the standard of chest measurement. Five feet one inch, or five feet three inches is not the proper standard of height of the British race. The fact that the War Office, have been obliged to lower the standard for recruits to five feet one inch of itself shows how our national physique is deteriorating. As to chest measurement, I must confess I was surprised to see how many men who at the first stage failed to pass the standard were able subsequently, by a certain amount of drill under competent teachers, to bring themselves up to the standard required. This, in itself, shows that had these men been properly trained from their youth they would not have lost their natural physique in the way they have done. It proves how necessary it is for the Board of Education to take proper measures to maintain the physical development of our youth—especially, I would add, in the case of the large towns and industrial centres, where the boys on leaving school at fourteen years of age go to work in factories or
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    sedentary occupations where their physical development is arrested. This question I would like to point out—and I trust the House will take notice—is that I wish to raise this question simply and solely as an educational question, and in no way whatever as a military question. I wish to deal with it primarily from the educational point of view. I hold—and I hope that the House will hold with me—that it is the duty of the Board of Education, who have made the mental education of our children compulsory, to make the physical education of our children equally compulsory. What is obligatory in the one is obligatory also in the other. It is to the Board of Education that we must in the first instance look for the maintenance of the national physique of our race.
    The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education, I am sorry to say, has tried—if I may use the expression—to shuffle out of his responsibility in this respect. When I asked him a question the other day as to what steps he proposed to take to initiate cadet training in secondary schools, the right hon. Gentleman tried to put the matter off on the War Office and on the County Territorial Associations. What on earth has the War Office to do with the training in secondary schools? You might just as well say that the War Office is responsible for physical training in elementary schools. The War Office has nothing to do with it, and I think the country will say that it will not accept any excuse of that kind. The schoolmasters themselves have accepted their responsibility. They recognise their duty to the country. I do not know whether the House has noticed it, but at the annual meeting this year of the Incorporated Association of Head Masters in Secondary Schools a resolution was passed, almost unanimously, there being only thirteen dissentients, to the following effect:—
    "That in the opinion of this association instruction in the elements of military drill and the use of the rifle should form part of the education of all boys in secondary schools."
    I would invite the House to take particular notice of that resolution. Most of us will agree that our idea—mine, certainly—of the schoolmaster hitherto has been of one whose ideal was to cram up his pupils to pass examinations. I can only say how gladly I see that the schoolmasters are recognising their responsibility in this respect, and that they realise that the training of the body is just as important as

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    the training of the mind. The opinion of the country, too, in this respect has come round in a most extraordinary manner. I myself have been at a great many meetings of various sorts during the last few months, and nothing has surprised me more than the outspoken manner in which parents are now demanding better physical training for their boys. We may all realise that the country is at the back of the schoolmasters in this demand for better physical education. There is one thing that struck me particularly in my own county of Leicester, where I can speak from personal experience, and that is that in no single county council school in the whole of that county has any attempt yet been made at cadet training. It is in the public schools and in the grammar schools, but in the county council schools no single attempt has yet been made of any sort whatever. County council secondary schools, being State schools, should set an example in all these things, yet we find that the county council schools have not even followed the example set them by the others.
    I therefore ask the President of the Board of Education to set the ball rolling in this respect by at once issuing definite instructions to all secondary and continuation schools under his control that cadet training is to in future form a regular part of the curriculum of that school. I would ask that arrangements should be made at once. I know that nothing can be done during the War, but directly the War is over we shall have no lack of drill and musketry instructors available, and the Government, will be able to help us in the loan of rifles and equipment, of which, as we know, at the end of the War there will be an enormous surplus. All this must be prepared for, and I do ask that these preparations may be taken without any further delay. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to try and deal with this question purely as an educational question, and not to try to put it in any way on the War Office, or the Territorial Association, or anybody else. The War Office may recognise certain cadet corps for certain purposes when formed, but it has nothing whatever to do with the formation of cadet corps or the training of cadet corps in secondary schools. A great work, an acknowledged great work, has been done in this direction by private effort, in the Junior Training Leagues which are now being formed in the great towns
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    throughout the country. I had the honour the other day of inspecting the Leicester Junior Training Corps at drill in a large skating rink. There I found some 2,000 odd boys, of ages ranging from 16 to 19, all voluntarily drilling away and doing their best to develop their bodies by learning the drill that ought to have been taught to them at school. Here were these boys spending their time at drill at night, after working hours, and trying their best, voluntarily, to make up for the deficiency in their education. All credit to these boys, I say; and all credit to the generous people who have helped them and enabled them to obtain that drill of which they were so much in need. I mention this to show what a demand there is in the country for cadet training, and how much cadet training would add to the popularity, both of our county council schools and of our continuation schools. A great deal has been done already to establish cadet corps by the governing bodies of certain county council schools. I would instance especially the Middlesex schools. There each governing body, having on it a majority of the representatives of the county council, is able to obtain an equal policy throughout the county. The cadet corps already formed in these Middlesex County Council schools have proved such a success that other schools in the county are following their example, but this is, after all, only a private effort. It is dependent on voluntary aid, whereas it ought to be a recognised part of the curriculum of each school. The Education Committee of the Middlesex County Council has not financed the cause in any way, and has simply given its consent to the formation of the corps.
    Again, take the London County Council, At its meeting on 9th February, just the other day, there was unanimously passed a resolution in favour of the establishment of cadet corps in the council schools. This example will, I have no doubt, be followed in various other counties throughout the country. But I do say that the question cannot be left to be dealt with in this haphazard way. We require a special and equal policy applicable to all the counties, and this can only be supplied by the Board of Education. The President of the Board of Education, I know, has no wish whatsoever to put any obstacle in the way of this cadet training in county council schools, but I do think he will realise that the time has come when a purely negative policy of that sort no longer meets the necessities

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    of the case. What the schoolmasters, the county councils, and the parents and the country generally now require is definite action on the part of the Board of Education to make cadet training part of the curriculum of all secondary schools for boys over fourteen years of age, thus establishing an equal and a uniform policy throughout the different counties. Finally, I would say that we must remember that cadet corps and officers' training corps can no longer be limited to the universities and to the great public schools. The policy of the country, the acknowledged policy of the people, is to do our best to give all classes an equal chance in life, and the pupils of county council secondary and continuation schools ought to be given an equal chance in cadet training with the grammar schools, public schools and universities throughout the country. What we desire is to let the best boy come to the front whatever may be his class in life. Therefore, on behalf of the people generally, I do ask the President of the Board of Education to accept this proposal and to take the necessary action to carry it into effect with the least possible delay.
    Mr. PEASE: I should like to address myself first of all to the speech to which the House has just listened. The hon. and gallant Gentleman seems to be of the opinion that cadet training corps is the only way in which physical training can be satisfactorily carried out in elementary schools, or at any rate in secondary schools. He has not pressed the military side, but at the same time I do not think it is possible for us to exclude the idea that cadet corps are associated with militarism. It may interest the hon. and gallant Member, and the House, to know that at the present time there are 1,047 secondary schools which we inspect and to which we give Grants. There are 118 secondary schools in England and Wales which are inspected at the request of the governing bodies of the schools but which are not Grant-receiving schools. Of those there are fifty-one officers' training corps attached to them—at any rate we know of fifty-one of these officers' training corps attached to secondary schools in the country. Of Grant-earning schools, to which the hon. Member has more particularly referred, there are, so far as I know, only fourteen to which cadet training corps are attached. He has saddled this matter exclusively on the Board of Education. Parliament in its
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    wisdom in the past has determined that these cadet corps and the officers' training-corps should be run by the War Office and not by the Board of Education, and the Grant which is given in connection with these corps is given through the War Office and appears upon the Votes of the War Office annually.
    In connection with cadet corps the Giant is only a small one—£5 in respect of each company—but in connection with officers' training corps I think the Grant amounts to £1 per head, which is a much more substantial sum. But, in addition to those Grants, there are matters connected with the supply of rifles, with camp life and the equipment of camps, for which, I believe, Giants are also given by the War Office. Therefore at the present moment I am not responsible for that kind of work for which the hon. Member thinks I ought to become responsible, but I can assure him that, so far as this kind if work promotes physical drill and the development of the physique of the student in the school, I am entirely at one with him. As a matter of fact, in all elementary-schools there is physical drill, and it is a compulsory subject in connection with the lower forms in all Grant-earning secondary schools in the country. The hon. Member may think the amount of physical drill is not sufficient; he may also criticise the number of minutes devoted each week to physical drill in our elementary schools; all I can say to him is—and I have now the assistance of my hon. Friend beside me—we are giving the utmost attention to this branch of the work.
    We believe the future of the nation depends very largely on the physique of the rising generation, and we are doing everything we can to stimulate and increase the amount of attention given by the authorities to the drilling and proper training of the children in our elementary and secondary schools. We believe that physical drill, as provided under the Swedish system, does develop the physique better than the military side of drill, so far as we have been able to study it. The tendency of military drill is to develop certain muscles and not the general physique of the whole body of the child. The Medical Branch of my Department has studied this matter very carefully, and they are quite satisfied that for children up to fourteen or fifteen years of age it is most desirable that military drill should not be introduced into our elementary schools.

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    In regard to the secondary schools, the question is a different one. Children are not compelled to attend secondary schools, and I have very little power over the secondary schools of the country. I can make representations to the secondary schools which receive Government Grants, and I have a certain amount of voice in connection with the curriculum; and all that I can tell the hon. Member at the present moment is that I can express a cordial sympathy with the movement. As regards cadet corps in secondary schools, my inspectors report to me that the physical drill and training given in connection with the establishment of these corps does promote, not only a corporate spirit, but a very valuable element in technical training. But I am absolutely in the hands of the governors of the schools, or the municipal authorities which run the secondary schools, to determine whether a cadet corps shall be attached to these schools, and it does not rest with me at all at the present time. I might tell the hon. Member that I approached the War Office before the outbreak of War in connection with this kind of work. I thought there was room for reform in certain directions, and they undertook then to consider it very carefully. I have approached them again since the War, and they say they are so busily engaged at the present moment that they cannot deal with matters connected with these reforms which we have been discussing, but that they intend at the very earliest opportunity when the War is over to go into this matter with the Board of Education and consider it fully.
    I turn to the main subject of the Debate to-day. If there is one thing in which the Board of Education take more interest than another, and if we desire to promote one object to a greater extent than another, it is to secure the regularity of attendance in the schools of the country, and not only do we urge that all children should be allowed to remain in the elementary school to the age of fourteen, but we do urge that many of those children who show possibilities of being able to take advantage of the secondary school should leave our elementary school at the age of eleven and go into our secondary schools and remain there until the age of seventeen, if parents can possibly make the sacrifice in their interest. The position of child labour is one that has been a great matter
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    of study, and we have accumulated a large amount of information. I am informed from such authorities to whom I have had access that there is something like a quarter of a million of children of school age who are employed in this country before, or after, their school hours, and, in addition to that, about a quarter of a million of our children of school age who, under the Workshops and Factories Acts, escape school, either wholly or partially, under the age of fourteen, all of whom are wage-earners. It is a very serious thing for a country like this that half a million of our children, under the age of fourteen, should be working when they ought to be only at school.
    I have been lectured here this afternoon by the hon. Member for Salford (Sir William Byles), and he has told me what I ought to do in connection with trying to secure the abolition of child labour. Let me just tell the House of the case, of Salford. Two years ago, in March, 1913, the Director of Education at Salford went round to the teachers and got all the teachers to find out what was the amount of employment given to the children in the schools of Salford, and he found that 2,363 of these little children attending school were employed at work, in addition to having to do their school work; 431 were delivering papers; 209 were delivering milk; 129 were in barbers' shops; 75 were butcher boys; 52 of them worked for forty hours a week, in addition to their schooling; 215 of them worked between thirty and forty hours a week; 375 worked between twenty and thirty hours a week; and 578 worked between ten and twenty hours a week; 565 were between the tender ages of eight and eleven. And then the hon. Member comes down to the House and wants to lecture me. Let him set his own house in order and tell his constituents what are his views with regard to child labour, and let Salford set Manchester, which is, I believe, a worse offender than Salford, a good example. It is right to say that since then Salford has done something; it has passed a by-law which will prevent any child attending school working more than twenty hours in any one week. That is an improvement, but it is still very unsatisfactory, and, what is still much more unsatisfactory, is that, although there is a law by the Act of 1903 that no child under the age of fourteen shall work at any other time than between the hours of six in the morning and nine in the evening, yet that Act is

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    really a dead letter, and in Manchester, Salford and many other towns I could name, there is no prosecution when children are employed any hours, early and late.
    The information which we have shows that the effect of all this child labour is that it retards physical development, it is prejudicial to the morals of the child, it is bad educationally, and it cannot be justified. Of course, there is a certain amount of domestic work incidental to every homo to which a child may possibly be placed, but what I am speaking about is the work of the wage earner—work which children are driven to undertake too often in the industrial towns and cities of this country. When I come to agriculture, I think we are justified in regard to the experience we have had in different towns, to do our utmost to discourage the premature employment of children in agriculture, just as much as in the industrial work of the country. Mr. Gardiner, a leading schoolmaster in Surrey, in a county area, protested the other day against what he thought was a reactionary policy, and said:—
    "Educated workers were wanted by the country to make the earth yield her increase abundantly, and to curtail education was the very way to make lives dull and lacking in intelligence."
    Dr. Adkins, medical officer in Devon, reported a short time ago, after an examination of the children who were employed in agriculture who ought to be at school, that he found when he measured them that 42 per cent. of these children were below normal and average height of children of their respective ages, and he went on to say in this report:—
    "Children cannot do both tilings—school and work. The school and the work they are doing is having a harmful effect on them, and it is generally known that the race is deteriorating, and the object of medical inspection is to find nut the reason of that. If you are going to improve the race, you must either stop the labour they are doing, or stop the schooling; they cannot do both; their little bodies will not stand the strain of the education and the work."
    Is it desirable for the House of Commons to pass legislation devoting large sums of money to the inspection of the children in the school in order to secure their proper treatment, to find meals for them when they are hungry, to organise systems for the proper employment of the children when they subsequently leave school, and at the same time to undo all this good work by allowing children to come away from school before their proper time? London has set a good example to the country in this matter. In 1911 over 10,000 boys were swept off the streets of this city who were previously distributing newspapers,
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    and I think something like 785 girls were dealt with at the same time. Until the War broke out I was hoping that we would be able to introduce legislation which would have done something to extend the school age, and have got rid of that most retrograde system which still obtains in many parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, namely, the half-time system. Unfortunately we have not been able to pass that legislation. I did feel that public opinion was behind the Government in the proposals which we were about to make, by which we intended to strengthen the law so as to prevent the evils which have arisen in connection with child labour. The more I look at this matter the more I realise that every month a child remains at school after the age of eleven the greater advantage accrues to that child, and it is a cumulative advantage each month. Of course to the Board of Education the interest of the child is the predominant consideration. Agriculture is one of the greatest industries in this country, and we must do our utmost to see that the crops are secured which are raised by the farmers. My hon. Friend has already told the House that there are many other ways open to the farmer before it is necessary to rely upon child labour in order to obtain the crops. It is a matter of very great regret to me that in certain areas there has been a disposition to accept the boys ready to their hands and for the farmers not to look ahead. Their policy seems to me to try and secure a temporary gain, which is possibly only worth a few pence, and thus to prejudice a permanent good, which would be worth pounds not only to the farmer, but to the child.
    I know it is no use abusing the farmers when they are suddenly confronted with great difficulties, in many cases losing a large number of their labourers, and they see the importance of getting additional men or staff to enable them to secure their crops, and without thinking they take advantage of the boy labour which is ready to their hands instead of taking advantage of other resources which I believe are available, and to which my hon. Friend has referred earlier in this Debate from this bench. On the whole, the education authorities have endeavoured to control this demand which has been made by the agriculturists for boy labour. I am sorry that this Debate is a little premature, because I have not been able to obtain the information from all the authorities which I promised to try and

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    obtain and circulate. I am, however, already satisfied, from the information which has come in, that it is only too true that those districts which pay the smallest wages, and where the conditions are the least attractive, are just those districts in which there is the greatest tendency to try and exploit boy labour. There are a very large number of authorities who have resisted altogether this demand for any relaxation of their by-laws or their administration of those by-laws. A few have tried to meet the case by undertaking to examine each case on its merits, and separately, and to fence any relaxation with very careful conditions which they have laid down so as to prevent any abuse in connection with the employment of child labour. But there are a few which have relaxed their administration in a way which I do not think is desirable.
    I have tried to place before the local authorities four or five principles. The first is that they should see that every effort is made in the locality for the wages to be reasonable before they entertain the idea of allowing any children to leave school in order to work on farms; secondly, that employment should only be given in very exceptional cases, and after very full inquiry that no other labour is available; thirdly, that there should be no general relaxation of any by-laws or rules or customs; fourthly, that the employment, if it is given, should be of a very light character and suited to the capacity of the child; and, fifthly, that the employment, if it is to be given at all, should only be given during an emergency and for a very definite period. I know that hon. Members think that it is perhaps unnecessary for me to argue that boy labour, under any circumstances, should be utilised upon a farm. I recognise, that I have had a good deal of help from the National Union of Teachers and their organisation in trying to put pressure upon, local education authorities to prevent the employment of boy labour. I also recognise that the trade unionists have done a good deal, but, if they would only make as good a protest in connection with the abolition of the half-time system in Lancashire and Yorkshire as they have done across the floor of the House in connection with this subject it would be a great help to me. Frequently I am asked how I can refuse to allow farmers the advantage of boy labour on their farms when the law itself in Lancashire and York-
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    shire allows boys at the age of twelve to work in factories under conditions which are much less advantageous to the health of the children.
    Mr. G. ROBERTS: May I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that those trade unionists who support the half-time system are very few in number, and the great majority of labour representatives are opposed to the system and have expressed that view publicly?
    Mr. PEASE: I recognise that a large number of labour representatives in this House and in the country are of that opinion, and I certainly do not want to misrepresent labour in regard to that matter. What I want the House to understand is that there has been up to the present time no illegality that we are able to put our hand upon in connection with the relaxation to which allusion has been made. The only charge really brought against me to-day is, if I may put it into my own words, that I have deliberately shown the way to local authorities how they may enable a certain number of children to be employed on farms. That charge has been made, but I have to administer the law as I find it. The law says that children may be allowed to be absent from shool if a reasonable excuse can be shown, and the Courts have held that even employment may be so regarded as a reasonable, excuse. In a case which occurred in connection with the London School Board, which went to the Court of Queen's Bench in 1884, it was held that employment might be regarded as a reasonable excuse.
    As a practical man I have to put it to myself, as I put it to the House, that in the event of a farmer being able, to show that he has paid good wages and is prepared to pay good wages, and cannot get any other labour, and that a certain amount, of boy labour, if only the labour of one boy at a time, will be an advantage to him, and he has kept that boy at home because he has lost a certain number of men who have recruited through the War, if a case like that was taken into the Court I do not think there is a bench of magistrates who would convict the parent for having kept that boy away from school I have to administer the law as I find it, and I have no power to fine an authority which relaxes its administration. I know I have the power to hold an inquiry and to mandamus an authority if it is recalcitrant, but I believe we are much more

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    likely to succeed in our object if we reason and make representations to the local authorities in order to get them to do what we urge upon them. We are more likely to succeed in that way than if we threatened them with a mandamus.
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    I do not believe that that is an effective weapon at the present time during the War in connection with local education authorities. I rely more upon making representations to them, and if I find that they are relaxing unduly and illegally their by-laws I point it out to them. If they were to act outside the law I would point out the undesirability of such relaxation. Our policy has been and still is to give as much discretion as possible to local education authorities in emergencies of this kind. From the information which reaches me I find that the advantage which has been taken of such relaxation amounts to under 1,300 cases in the whole country. A certain number of authorities have apparently passed resolutions with a view to possible relaxation in the future; but I hope that one object served by this Debate will be that it will deter education authorities from relaxing their regulations with a view of exploiting child labour. Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and West Sussex are three of the authorities which have allowed more boys to leave school than possibly they ought to have done. It is difficult to pillory any of these education authorities without knowing the full circumstances of the case. Take, for example, counties like Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, where there are very large camps, and in connection with those camps the schools have been commandeered, and a very large number of boys have been turned out of the schools and no other accommodation has been provided for them elsewhere by the local education authorities. It is quite possible that in those two counties a large number of these boys are employed, partly, at any rate, because they have no school to which they can go. There is some little justification for the employment of boys when the local education authority is not able to provide accommodation for them on account of the schools having been commandeered. From the point of view of the education of the children the commandeering of the schools for the purposes of the War—I am making no complaint—has been much more serious than the employment of boy labour up to the present time. There are 13,000 children for whom there is now no
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    accommodation, as against under 1,300 children who have been temporarily employed on the farms in the agricultural areas. There is, I think, one matter for congratulation. There is a Clause in the Robson Act which enables children to be taken away from school at the age of eleven. I am glad to say that particular Clause, although it has been adopted in the by-laws of several counties, has not been up to the present time relied upon, and I believe that last year only something like twenty-three children were exempted from school at the age of eleven in order to help in agricultural work. I have been asked to introduce legislation to raise the school age. I should be glad to do so, but I know that during the War it is quite impossible for me to do anything of the kind. It is equally impossible for the Government to introduce any law which is going in any way to enable local education authorities to relax their by-laws, or to enable children to be exploited for the purpose of providing labour either in agriculture or any other direction. When I consider the immense demands which are made upon what I may call "the fund of intelligence," which it is the business of education to create, and upon which the country must rely to prepare for the wastage of war, I decline to legislate or to approve of administration which, I believe, to be of a retrograde character.
    Mr. BLACK: I have listened with considerable satisfaction to the speech of the President of the Board of Education, and I should like to take the opportunity of Baying just a few words, not with the object of stiffening his back, because I find from his speech that is entirely unnecessary, but in order to assure him that there is a considerable body of opinion in the country behind him in any step he can possibly take to minimise the introduction of boy labour in agriculture in the country at the present time. I know pretty well there is a shortage of labour, and I believe that it will be felt more acutely as time goes on, but, in my opinion, the very last remedy which should be sought is that which has been proposed by a certain number of education authorities and a certain number of farmers' associations in the country. I notice that the Farmers' Union at their meeting yesterday asked that boys of the age of twelve should be set free in cases of need for agricultural work. A week ago the Nottinghamshire Farmers' Union put the age at eleven. Why stop at either eleven or

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    twelve? There are many parents and grandparents of children in the schools to-day who can certainly say, "I went to work at the age of eight or nine, and I am not very much the worse for it." We do not want to encourage that kind of thing.
    The proper and only remedy is an immediate and substantial increase of wages. This will be the very best means of securing that an adequate supply of labour will be forthcoming. It can be done, and it must be done. Good wages never ruined any industry. Poor wages invariably mean poor work. A man ill-paid, ill-clothed and badly housed is unprofitable to everybody concerned. Every farmer knows if he wants to get the best out of the land that he must first of all put plenty into it, and, if you want to get the best results from the work of a horse, you must feed him well. I know perfectly well that the great majority of the parents in the villages would welcome the proposal that their children should go to work. I know enough of the financial strain of the cottager to realise the power of the monetary consideration. Given an opportunity of an addition to the family income of from 3s. to 5s. per week from one or more of the children and the temptation in the case of these poor people is practically irresistible, but the House in my opinion ought, if possible, to save the parents from this temptation. The school life of the child will never return. It is at the best, as the President of the Board of Education just said, already too short, and to interfere with it in the way proposed is to impose a penalty on the future of every child concerned.
    This country spends many millions of money on education, though not by any means too much, and the question we have the right to ask is, "Are we getting value at the present time?" I am not sure that we are. It is not too much to say that nine out of every ten children leaving school do so even now ill-trained and inefficiently equipped for the battle of life. They are taught a smattering of many subjects. They learn a few rules of arithmetic and a few facts of history, and then they leave school and promptly forget it all. Not one in fifty, I venture to think, learns the meaning and the object of their schooling. Not one child in fifty leaves school with a thirst for knowledge, and that is, after all, the most priceless gift a teacher can impart. I ask the House not to make it more difficult for these children. Do not
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    let us make it more difficult for the teachers. The teacher's lot is already sufficiently hard. Nobody knows better than he how futile much of his work is. Do not let us render nugatory the little good the teacher can already do the child. We have, at this moment, hundreds of thousands of men in training for the Army. How important it would be if these men were immediately available, and if we could land them in France to-morrow well-trained and well-equipped, but how ruinous it would be to land them ill-trained and inefficiently equipped and to send children out into the world ill-trained and ill-equipped is an equally suicidal policy. It is to live upon our capital; it is to make a draft upon our future well-being as a nation. This House is the trustee of the child life of the land. In past years this House has passed Factory Acts and Education Acts, has given maternity benefits to mothers for the sake of the children, and all these things prove that this Assembly has not been unmindful of its trust. I therefore beg the House to turn a deaf ear to the appeal that has been made. It is our business to stiffen the hands of the education authority, and to let the country know that we shall not allow our educational machinery to be thrown into the melting pot. We therefore warn the agricultural community that they must look to other means for the necessary supply of labour. For my part, I am quite certain that, given proper wages and reasonable conditions of service, an adequate supply of labour will not be lacking.
    Mr. DENMAN: The speech of the President of the Board of Education is, of course, of great importance. He has told us, and it is very welcome information, that prior to the War breaking out he had contemplated the introduction of legislation to raise the school age and to abolish half-timers. We shall remember that was in his mind, and when the War is over we shall expect it. There will certainly be an excess of labour cast upon the labour market, and we shall expect him to take the opportunity the industrial conditions will then undoubtedly present of raising the school age and abolishing the half-time system. I confess that in some other matters I thought his speech was not quite so hopeful and was somewhat disappointing. Practically, he pleaded that he had done his best with local authorities to prevent the use of children of

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    school age in agriculture. That is not the impression of people outside this House. Someone earlier in the Debate observed that nobody knows what is the policy of the Board of Education, but I am afraid that is not quite accurate, because the prevailing impression is certainly summed up in a speech yesterday at the National Farmers' Union, where one member said, "Let them take the children; the Board of Education will do nothing." I am bound to say that is the impression I should have derived from a study of the documents. I do not know how the Board of Education proposes to escape from the position in which it has landed itself. The speech we have heard to-night will no doubt show that the President of the Board of Education is himself eager to prevent the use of school children; but unless the Board of Education collaborates with the Board of Agriculture in pursuit of an active policy to provide agricultural labour, I am afraid that not much will be done by the aspirations of the present.
    There was one special line taken by the President which I think should be at once dealt with. I venture with all the diffidence of a layman and with great respect to say, that the use which he made of the phrase "reasonable excuse" is a complete departure from any use that has hitherto been made of it. He is in effect saying to the local authorities, "If you think a reasonable excuse exists for non-attendance you are then exonerated from the obligation to enforce the by-laws." The right hon. Gentleman will see that is an entirely different position from what I certainly understood was the attitude of the law, that school attendance shall take place in accordance with the by-laws unless the parent or child has a reasonable excuse for absence. He will see the difference between the two. It is not the opinion of the local education authority on the state of the labour market which is to constitute a reasonable excuse, but the interests or the domestic circumstances of the child itself. We all know the kind of excuses that are made—bad weather and long distance, and even in select cases the economic need of the home. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the case of the London School Board. That is, of course, a case in point. There it was argued that the family desperately needed the wages of the child, and the judge held that the labour-earning capacity of the child constituted a reasonable excuse for non-attendance.
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    But the procedure encouraged, apparently, by the education authority is that the parent shall say, "I believe there is a serious shortage of labour; it is important that we should grow more food: I know a farmer who will be glad to employ my boy." That, it is suggested, is to be taken as a reasonable excuse. If so, then I submit it is an extension of the doctrine of reasonable excuse for which I have been unable to find any authority in law. If there is to be no limitation of the extent to which the idea of reasonable excuse may be carried, then you are making a very serious inroad into the whole principles of school attendance. It is perfectly clear that education committees are conscious that they are breaking the law from time to time. Let me quote one statement made by the chairman of an education committee of which I do not propose to give the name. He suggested that where it could be shown that the parents of boys of twelve years of age desired them to leave school and accept a place on a farm, the managers of the school should be told not to prosecute. If you tell a man not to prosecute, he presumably has the power to prosecute, and it is tantamount to telling him not to do that which it is his clear duty to do. This gentleman went on to say, "They would thus avoid altering the by-laws, and would give elasticity to the administration." That is a glorious phrase. In war time apparently we are not to observe the laws because there is to be elasticity of administration. I cannot help wondering what would happen if, before this same gentleman a hungry wretch was brought on a charge of stealing food, would he then say, "In time of war there must be elasticity in administration of the law." No, on the contrary, he would probably argue that in time of war a person must be a double-dyed villain who thought of such a thing as breaking the law of this country.
    I am afraid the conclusion which many of us have come to is that the Board of Education has not taken the best steps it could have done to prevent or discourage this infraction of the law. But we are engaged this evening in making practical suggestions rather than criticisms. We have had many suggestions made to us, such as that if farmers would only pay higher wages they could get more men. That may be true. But I am sorry to be pessimistic enough to think that the problem is going to be even more serious

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    than the serious speech of the Parliamentary Secretary seemed to indicate. The shortage of labour is not likely, as far as I can tell, to be met from any of the sources to which the hon. Gentleman alluded. There are very few men available in the labour market, and very few women also, and there would consequently have to be new sources of supply tapped. I ask the Board of Education not to allow the new supply to be secured merely by slipshod and lax administration. If the Government want more power, let them come down and pass emergency legislation. In the earlier days of the War they were able by such means to get what they wanted, and if they adopt the same policy now it would be better than allowing the administration to become slack and then to have to build it up again after the War. When the Board of Agriculture gets the figures regarding the shortage of labour, it will probably find it must take more energetic and active steps to deal with the problem. May I suggest that they should expand their system of county committees, and add nominees, one each from the Board of Education and the Labour Exchange, with two farmers and two representatives of agricultural labour. Let such a committee fully explore the subject, hear evidence of local conditions, and suggest the best remedies it can. I do not think anyone in this House would really object to the taking of suitable children from school if it is proved to be essential. But there is no proof at all of that, and only to-day we had an admirable answer from the Secretary for Scotland to the effect that he was not aware of any district in Scotland in which the rule had been relaxed to enable children under fourteen years of age to be exempted from school attendance. Scotland, thus, so far has succeeded in managing without, that relaxation, and I hope it will continue to do so.
    There is one other source of supply: According to the census of 1911, there were over 200,000 persons between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. There has been a singular lack of information throughout this Debate. Nobody appears to know the extent of the shortage of agricultural labour, and no one has attempted to estimate it. But we do know, as a fact, that in 1911 there were 660,000 agricultural labourers, and if we assume that 10 per cent. have joined the Colours, it means a shortage of over 60,000. Possibly, with-
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    out breaking the education law, it might be possible to get over the difficulty by securing the services of some of those boys between fourteen and eighteen who are no longer under an obligation to attend school. There are many such boys at our grammar and public schools, who in a moment of emergency would be only too glad to spend a few months on a farm. These are the people we should seek to take rather than boys under school age, and it would be much better than the wholesale breach of the law which has been suggested. Of course, this is not a time to indulge in pedantry, but I would urge the Government not to sit still and allow the administration of the law to slacken. Rather let them pursue the policy urged so admirably by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, and supply the deficiency by some other means.
    Mr. OUTHWAITE: I think the best reply to this agitation for the employment of child labour is to be, found in the condition of the benches on the other side of the House. When the President of the Board of Education was replying there were only two or three members of the party which represent the land interest in particular, present to listen to what the Government propose to do in this matter, which, we are told, is one of the greatest national concern. I should like to express my appreciation of the statement made by the representative of the Board of Agriculture. I desire to point out this fact, that we are to-day reaping the results of the evils of our land system, evils to which I have again and again drawn the attention of this House. We have swept away men from the country-side. Low wages, bad housing, and innumerable other evils, such as lack of personal freedom, have driven our men to the uttermost ends of the earth, and to-day, in the time of national crisis, when we require them, they are not here. Some, it is true, are returning. I believe in connection with the troops coming from Australia and Canada from 40 to 80 per cent. of the men were born in this country. They are returning to give their services in this time of national stress, but there are hundreds of thousands of men in various parts of the world whom we have driven from the country-side, who ought also to be here serving the nation in the time of crisis. I have my suspicions of this plan of the farmers for taking the children away during school age. I have spent a good

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    deal of my time travelling about the country inquiring into the conditions of the villages, and I have found that the farmer regards education as a useless pursuit, especially education as administered in the schools of this country. He has always regarded it as somewhat foolish that a child should be educated after the age of ten or eleven years, and thought he would be much better employed behind the harrow, or feeding stock, or milking the cows. I am afraid there is a great number of farmers of this retrograde disposition who regard this as an opportunity of getting in the thin edge of the wedge mid breaking up our system of education. Their regard for education may be indicated by an advertisement I saw not very long ago for a school teacher in the county of Dorset. The wage was infinitesimal, and the sole qualification set out in the advertisement was that the teacher must have been vaccinated. That rather represents the views of many farmers, especially in the low wage districts as regards the essentials of education.
    This is not, therefore, an emergency matter. We are dealing with a difficulty of a permanent nature, due to the evils of our land system, and we are not going to find a solution in any temporary measure. If the present problem is solved by taking away children, then children will continue to be taken away at an early age. We have to go to the root of the evil and discover why the labour is not available on the country-side. I strongly support those who have said that the first thing to be done is to increase the wage of the agricultural labourer. It is to be realised that a substantial increase in his wage means an increase in the product of the labourer himself. No man can do a decent day's work on the wage that he is paid in many of the counties, especially in those counties where they are demanding child labour. When a man is getting from 12s. to 15s. a week, and has to support a wife and family, he is not getting sufficient food to put him in a physical condition to provide the greatest output of labour. A very large number of English agricultural labourers have gone to Australia in recent years. I have seen a statement in Australian agricultural papers that they will not have English agricultural labourers as their work is far too slow. An Australian gets what is equivalent to 30s. a week—£1 a week, plus his board and lodging. He will do from two to four times the
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    amount of work an English labourer will do when he first arrives in Australia. After he has had the benefit of better food and higher wages, he becomes as good a labourer as the Australian. Therefore I say that if you increase the wage of the labourer you will increase the production from each individual labourer.
    Not long ago I was in Norfolk dining with a friend of mine at the chief inn in one of the chief agricultural centres. At the head of the table was the leading farmer of the district, a very charming man, who entered into conversation with me. He was a man who apparently had a great regard for his workers. We got on to the question of wages. He said that his men were well employed and their wage was good. I asked him what it was, and he said 14s. a week. Out of that something had to be paid for a cottage, and there were probably other deductions. He said that was plenty for a man to maintain himself and his wife and children. After some further conversation I asked him what it cost him at the present time to keep a draught horse in good physical condition. I forget his exact reply, but I think he said from 14s. to 15s. a week. I then said, "Do you expect a man, his wife and children, to keep in good physical condition on the same cost as one draught horse?" It is very obvious that if it costs 14s. to 15s. to maintain a horse in condition it is impossible for a man to keep in condition when, on that amount of pay he has to provide for himself and perhaps a large family. Increasing the wage will not only put the labourer in the best physical condition, it will not only attract men to the soil, but it will also retain on the soil those who are at present there. Wages are rising in many directions, due to the many demands set up by the War, and owing to the taking away of a large number of men for the service of the Crown. Consequently, if wages on the land are not substantially raised, men will drift away more rapidly than in the past from the villages. If you want to avoid a crisis, the raising of the wage of the agricultural labourer is a fundamental point.
    The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Peto) said that the matter is one of great urgency in Wiltshire. He mentioned the fact that he had been through Belgium and had seen women and children working on the farms. He also said it was a great discredit to this country, or he used words to that effect, that we should be at this moment

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    paltering with this matter, and his argument was that we should immediately send our children to the land to work. I would remind him that the women and children he saw in Belgium were the wives and children of the owners of the land who were virtually working for their own benefit. I want to know whether the landowners of the country are providing the fullest amount of labour they can for the working of their own land, and if the great farmers who are making this demand are taking their children from the schools and colleges at the ages of eleven and twelve and setting them to work on their land? Are the people of the halls doing the same thing? I remember the story of an estate which formerly belonged to the Church, but was taken away from it. In the time of Queen Mary it was given back to the Church, and the abbess was reinstalled with her nuns. Later on it was again restored to the owner, and he rode up to the abbey with his followers, and he said to the abbess, "Out, out to work, go spin!" I would say to the great farmers of this country that if they wish to take the children of the worst paid labourers in the country, the weakest members of the community, let them show their patriotism in the first place by sending their own children to follow the harrow and to feed the stock.
    In this matter of great national emergency it should not fall upon the weakest to foot the Bill. This is a matter which shows amongst a section of the farmers the very greatest selfishness. We have to realise that the prices of staple products have almost doubled during the last six months. The profits of many are enormous, and consequently they will be well able to afford to pay regular increased wages to retain men on the soil and attract them to it. There is a great national emergency in this matter of increasing the products of the soil at this time. I do not underestimate it in the very least. But there are other ways of increasing the products of the soil besides making children little wage-slaves. Only two or three days ago I saw a report in the "Huddersfield Examiner" of a meeting of farmers, the tenants of the Ramsden estate, which passed a resolution expressing deep regret that the agent of the estate had refused to allow them to break their contract to the extent of ploughing up grass land to provide corn at this time of high prices and national emergency. Throughout the
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    length and breadth of the country a heavy penalty is placed upon a farmer who breaks up grass land. The first thing to do, if you want to increase the products of the soil, is for the Government to see that these contracts are broken and abrogated that prevent the farmer who desires to increase the production of corn, and who has a possibility of doing it, from starving the nation at this time. Therefore, I express the highest appreciation, particularly of the speech of the representative of the Board of Agriculture, who, while acknowledging the position of the farmers, says there is no need yet, before other methods are exhausted, to save the nation by turning the child of the agricultural labourer into a slave.

    WESTMINSTER HALL (RESTORATION OF ROOF).
    Mr. KING: I wish to call attention to a matter of immense importance. A policy is about to be started which, I am quite certain, if put through, will give a great amount of offence to the best judges and cause deep regret for many years to come. I refer to the great question of the roof of Westminster Hall. The roof of Westminster Hall is, as we have been aware for ten months, if not more, in a condition that needs repair. I do not for a moment question the necessity of doing something very extensive in its operation to the roof of that great hall, but I especially want the House to realise that the most sacred secular building in the whole of our history, and I therefore think in the history of the world, is going to be radically changed and altogether altered as a structure, and there has been no Debate in the House upon this most important step since 23rd April, 1914. On that date there was a Debate it is true, but it was a Debate upon the Vote for the Houses of Parliament. It began after half-past seven, which was the time the Division was called before the Debate commenced, and it was interrupted at 8.15 by a private Bill which took nearly the whole of the evening. The discussion, therefore, was most inadequate to the subject, and admitted of nothing but one long speech from an hon. Member whom we are very sorry not to have with us (Mr. Wedgwood Benn), whose sprightly treatment of this and every other subject connected with the Office of Works is a very pleasant memory, and if I may say so with respect to the hon. Gentleman who will reply to me, though we should be sorry not to have him in the same capacity, yet we

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    should very much like to have back the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wedgwood Benu).
    It is a very curious thing that in this Debate of 23rd April the plan of the Government was enunciated, and it was not until more than two months afterwards that the report upon their investigations of the actual proposals of the Government was given. The House is therefore being asked to consider itself as having debated a subject on 23rd April which was only laid before it in the report of 13th June. When the report was laid before the House a request was at once made to the Prime Minister that a day should be given for the discussion. Before a definite answer was given the hon. Member (Mr. Wedgwood Benn) announced, on 25th June, less than a fortnight after this report was published, that the whole of the recommendations were being adopted, and that therefore there was to be no discussion of them by the House. I want to call the attention of the House, and especially of hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench, to the fact that they have not treated us fairly in this matter. If it had not been that this report was published only just before the extremely exciting time of party conflict and the threat of public riot and revolution which we had at the end of June and in July, and if that had not been followed immediately by the outbreak of the War, there would be by this time an overwhelming body of public opinion against this report and its proposals.
    So far from the Government taking in hand this plan, and putting it into operation at a huge unnecessary expense, as it seems to me, without any objection by anybody, I am certain we should have by this time a Committee of Inquiry, and we should have had counter proposals, and I am confident that we should have had a different solution of the problem of the roof at very much less public expense. That is my position. If the Government will allow a Committee to be appointed—I do not even say a House of Commons Committee, though under ordinary circumstances I should press that—but if there was a Departmental Committee appointed to look into this report, examine witnesses, and report again before the actual structural work was taken in hand, I should be satisfied. I am confident that the result would be that we should have a different roof from the extravagant and outrageous proposal which is being made. What is the recommendation of this report,
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    and what are my objections to it? I hope that possibly, if we cannot get a promise of a Committee, or further inquiry, we shall, at any rate, have a promise that we shall have an opportunity on an early day, as soon as we get Mr. Speaker out of the Chair on the Civil Service Estimates, when the whole of this matter may be discussed.
    I hope the hon. Member who is to reply will undertake that, as far as possible, the work of vital and decisive character will be kept back until after that discussion. If he gives that undertaking, I shall be satisfied. I admit, of course, that the roof needs repair, but the proposal is to put up a huge iron structure from which the existing roof will be more or less suspended, so that the roof, as we shall see it, will not be the structural roof at all, but old pieces of timber repaired by new timber, but it will not carry the weight of the roof, and it will not support the slates, or whatever may be the material adopted. It will be a structural sham. It will be no more the real roof of the building, but only a certain number of ancient timbers. I object altogether to a great historical building, one of the noblest, probably the noblest, Gothic building in the world, being treated in that way, without any discussion in the House of Commons, and I object to advantage being taken of this War to commit, what I call, an act of artistic vandalism.
    Let me give very briefly one or two reasons why I think we might fairly have an assurance from the Treasury Bench that this work will be stopped, at any rate, until there is further discussion, and preferably there should be further inquiry. The first point I wish to raise is that opinions have been already strongly expressed against this report from various different points of view. The report of Mr. Baines—I do not want to say anything disrespectful of that gentleman, for he is a friend of a great many hon. Members, and he is a very capable man with regard to the actual construction and power of an iron roof. As an architectural engineer he is, I have no doubt, an excellent and first-rate authority, and I do not question that the roof he proposes to put in will be strong enough. If we are to have an iron roof from which the present timbers are to be suspended, I am willing to agree that Mr. Baines will carry it out very well. Some men of science have already expressed doubt of the

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    wisdom of this course. I have here a letter—I will not trouble the House by reading it—from Professor Stebbing, of Edinburgh University. He is Professor of Forestry in that university, and he is a great authority, not only on timber, but on the ravages of insects on timber. Professor Stebbing is an authority of the very highest character. I wish to refer, also, to the fact that the hon. Member for Cambridge University, who, I am sorry, has not been present this week, has expressed in the "Times" newspaper his strong feeling that further inquiry and discussion are necessary before this work is undertaken. These are only two of the men of science I could quote. This is not an ecclesiastical building, but it is the greatest building of a secular character in London. I will quote Mr. Lynam, one of the best known antiquarian architects. He says:—
    "This is vandalism, and we ought to draw our swords against the vandals as against the Huns."
    That shows that he feels pretty strongly about it. I have a communication from Mr. Garöe, the architect to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who has been connected with the repair of most of the cathedrals in the Kingdom. He knows the subject of these great Gothic timber roofs better, perhaps, than any other architect in the Kingdom. He has not been consulted. There was no attempt to approach him by the Office of Works. If we had a Committee we should be able to approach men who know the subject. Mr. Caröe was articled to Mr. Pearce, who placed the roof of Westminster Hall in its present condition. He was, for seven months, every day on the scaffolding of this roof. He has had an experience of the roof which is absolutely unique. He was never asked a single question on the subject. That shows how the Office of Works goes to work. It simply blunders through its officials. I wish to speak with all respect of it, but I think I am justified in making some strong animadversions on it. I wish to say that engineering opinion is not favourable to the making of the roof of Westminster Hall a great work of engineering, rather than of architecture. I wish to quote what "The Practical Engineer" said only in its last issue:—
    "It is now intended to practically build a new roof of steel girders behind the wood and out of sight. For the authors of this proposal some term stronger than semi-criminal is required. Better a naked and unashamed steel roof, than the imposture which has been decided on."
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    I am going to quote a practical man. The House is full of them now. I suppose the practical man who knows more about these great timber roofs than any other is Mr. Gaymer, of Cornish and Gaymer, the firm who are now reconstructing Durham and Canterbury Cathedrals. They have enormous stocks of old timber, and they are one of the two or three firms that can undertake such work as the reconstruction and repair of our great cathedral roofs. Mr. Gaymer was engaged as a young man some years ago in connection with Westminster Hall, and his firm has made an estimate of the cost. This is extremely important. Mr. Gaymer has made a firm offer that he would do the work for £49,500.
    Mr. MacVEAGH: Would he do it on commission?
    Mr. KING: It is a firm estimate; it is not on commission. The proposal of Mr. Baines in his Blue Book is for £60,000 or £11,000 more. That was a pre-War price. That was the estimate of a gentleman drawing up his own proposals, and naturally not putting them at the highest possible figure. Therefore we should save £10,000 at least by repairing the roof with timber rather than by putting on a new superstructure of steel. I have taken the trouble to go into the matter thoroughly, and to get advice much better than my own opinion. I believe that there is undoubtedly a case for delay, consideration, and further inquiry before this most historic and noble building is transformed from what it is, a grand specimen of Gothic architecture, into a mere sham of modern engineering. I appeal to the House for sympathy. There is a strong case, and I hope that it will get some consideration in the answer which is about to be given.
    9.0 P.M.
    Mr. BECK (Lord of the Treasury): I feel extremely sorry on this, the first occasion I have the honour to reply from this bench to my hon. Friend, that I am not able to give him the comfort which he desires. The fact is that he is late in the day. My hon. Friend the Member for St. George's-in-the-East, whose absence we all regret, though the cause of it is entirely honourable to him, made a very lengthy speech in the House of Commons on the 23rd April on the subject of this roof. Not only did he do that, but he did what I imagine no one had done before, arranged for personally conducted tours of Members of this House to go over the roof of Westminster Hall. Further than that, before

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    Mr. Baines' most able scheme was adopted, the Institute of British Architects and the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings were consulted, and if time permitted it would be easy to bring the names of ten famous men to bear against each one that has been quoted by my hon. Friend. The fact is that it is too late. A definite contract has been entered into for the carrying out of the work on the lines proposed by Mr. Baines. The House has had one of the most able statements of that sort which were ever written placed before it on the part of Mr. Baines. The matter was urgent, because we were told by those who are capable of judging that it was almost a miracle that this great and wonderful roof, one of the glories of British architecture, continued to exist at all, so decayed and eaten away was it. Therefore it was felt that not a moment was to be lost in the work of safeguarding it for many generations. Though I am most anxious to meet my hon. Friend, there is no possible way on this occasion, because the contract has been placed, after consultation with all the people who are capable of judging, and the great consensus of opinion was in favour of the plan adopted.
    Question put, and agreed to.

  WAR OFFICE TIMBER PURCHASES.
  Mr. WALTER REA (Lord of the Treasury): I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
  Mr. W. YOUNG: I must again ask the indulgence of the House to follow up further the question of timber purchases on behalf of the War Office. With all due respect to the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken in defence of the agreement the other evening, I do not think that they made out any case in defence of this arrangement that was either satisfactory to the Members of this House or to the public outside. It cannot be said that this is a small matter. I think that the interest shown in the Debate last week must have made it perfectly clear to the Government that this whole question of War Office purchases and contracts involving the expenditure of what might be termed fabulous sums of money, both at home and abroad, is one which is receiving, and must receive, the most serious attention of this
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  House. I really think that I am doing the Government a favour in having ventured to call attention to this extraordinary appointment, and I hope that the Government may look upon it in that light.
  As I ventured to say a week ago, if errors or blunders are being committed or allowed to pass, it may be through lack of business experience or pressure of work in the various Departments of the Government, or through other causes, it is better in the public interest that they should be remedied now and not in a year or eighteen months hence, when the whole of the damage is done, and it will be beyond the power of this House or anyone else either to remedy or even to mitigate the effects of that extravagant expenditure. If we are to derive any profit or enlightenment from this discussion, it seems to me that one of the first things which we have to do is to fix the responsibility for the timber-buying arrangement which has been brought to the notice of this House. In my opinion, and I speak as a business man and not as a lawyer, notwithstanding what was stated by the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the War Office in the last Debate, the main responsibility clearly rests with the War Office. As far as this particular transaction is concerned, the War Office is clearly responsible, at any rate, to this House. If, for example, this House were to entrust to me a large sum of money, say, £100,000,000—not a very likely occurrence—for the purpose of purchasing material and equipment, including timber, for the use of the country, and I choose to delegate, or permit to be delegated, to some other person or persons part of the work or duties which have been entrusted to me, involving the expenditure of a large part of the money, clearly I have been, and should still remain, the person responsible to this House should they have occasion to call him to account.
  That is the position, I think, of the War Office with regard to this Meyer arrangement. I really fail to see how the Financial Secretary to the War Office can justifiably refuse to admit the responsibility of the Department he represents, as he did in a former debate on this subject. I do not propose to occupy the time of the House in repeating the arguments I used last week in order to show that the arrangement entered into is an extravagant one, and against the public interest. I do not think that the speech of the hon. Gentleman convinced a single Member of

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  this House, or anyone outside it, that the timber-buying arrangement was other than I and various hon. Members who spoke on the subject represented it to be, namely, a most unbusinesslike proceeding on the part of the War Office and the Office of Works, but a remarkably good piece of business for the buying agent whom they appointed. The main and outstanding reason given for the appointment of Mr. Meyer was that the timber trade, or the large timber merchants in the trade, as is alleged by the hon. Gentleman, had shown a desire, or even made an attempt, to hold up or "squeeze" the Government, Then, as we were told by the Financial Secretary to the War Office, Mr. Meyer, of course brimming over with patriotism to the tune of some £60,000 a year, and himself a timber merchant, by the way, made his dramatic appearance, as we were told, on the scene, and, as we can imagine, he would say, "Here am I, ready to take it at 2½ per cent. on the value of the purchases the War Office require." And the situation was saved, and the country. The House knows that there are plenty of timber merchants of the highest respectability and standing in the trade who would have been only too glad to do this business for very much smaller remuneration.
  I hold no brief for the timber or any other trade, but I do say that in the timber trade there is at least as high a proportion of honourable and patriotic men as in other great trades and industries of our country. I think this will be clearly proved by the bonâ-fide offers which were made to the War Office—and they were neglected, or not even replied to—by, at any rate, some of the oldest and most highly respected persons in the trade. I will only add that I am very certain that it will be clear to every business man, both inside the House of Commons and outside it, if it be true as alleged—I am not arguing about that now—that the timber trade made this attempt to hold up or "squeeze" the Government—that was the term used by the Financial Secretary to the War Office. I can only say that if they were able to do it, it must be clear to every business man that they were equally able to hold up a second or third-rate timber merchant like Mr. Meyer, as buying agent of the Government, had they chosen to do so. Either the Office of Works or the War Office, as is alleged was done in a former Debate, were not then aware that purchases of timber would be
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  required on such a large scale as has been the case. I cannot help saying that this appears to me to be a pure evasion of the whole question, and a very lame excuse for the blunder which has been committed. The agreement was entered into some three or four months ago. They were bound to know that this business would assume very large dimensions. If they did not know they certainly ought to have known, and I do not think that anyone in this House will imagine that Mr. Meyer would have been anywhere around with his magnanimous offer of assistance had there been the slightest prospect that the business was to be on an insignificant scale. I should add that, in my opinion, the official—I do not know whether he is at the War Office or at the Office of Works—who made this arrangement, whoever he may be, ought certainly to be transferred to some other Department where he would not have the power to pay exorbitant rates with the country's money as has evidently been done in this case.
  It was not enough that the Financial Secretary to the War Office should make an evidently unwilling and hesitating statement that some kind of modification of this preposterous agreement is under consideration by the Office of Works. I believe that the feeling of this House, and of business men generally, is that the agreement with Mr. Meyer should be terminated forthwith, as one which is in every way unbusinesslike and contrary to the public interest. It was admitted by the hon. Gentleman who spoke the other evening on behalf of the Office of Works that those purchases of timber have increased, that they have assumed enormous proportions, and are likely to increase. I say at once, that in any great business of this kind, involving almost fabulous sums of public money, it is absurd that the War Office authorities should have been inveigled into it, or should have allowed themselves to be tied up with an agreement which, as I have said before, was flagrantly opposed to the public interest. In a great business of this kind it seems to me that the patriotism of those of the timber trade ought to have been appealed to, and that offers, which were undoubtedly made, ought to have been listened to by the War Office; and had this been done, I think that these men would have made a hearty and sincere response to their country's requirements, as has been done in so many other directions by the majority of the community.

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  The method adopted by the War Office or the Office of Works, as the case may be, I was told yesterday, is such as to create a feeling of very serious uneasiness throughout the whole of the country in regard to the whole question of Army purchases. The whole trend of opinion both in this House and throughout the country, I believe, is that this matter ought to receive the immediate and most serious attention of the Government.
  My own opinion is, and others who have spoken have given expression to the same opinion, that a Committee of business men, not necessarily all Members of this House, although this House is responsible, should be at once appointed with full powers to advise upon and deal with the contracts and purchases of the War Office, Office of Works or other Departments of the Government. Already purchases are made on a gigantic scale, which, in the unprecedented conditions in which we find ourselves, involves the expenditure of enormous sums of public money. With regard to Mr. Meyer's purchases as sole timber buying agent for the War Office, I repeat that the universal opinion is that it is a bad and unbusinesslike arrangement from beginning to end. As to the proposed modification which we heard from the hon. Gentleman yesterday, and due I suppose to the extraordinary benevolence of Mr. Meyer, I say that it is neither more or less than an attempted imposition on the supposed credulity of Members of this House. Mr. Meyer is to be allowed to put into his pocket 2½ per cent. on purchases up to £600,000, and 2 per cent. on purchases from £600,000 to one million, and on purchases over one million to receive 1½ per cent. I desire to read one letter which I have received from one of the best known timber brokers in the trade to show what is the regular commission in the business. It comes from Liverpool, and is dated 19th February. I will show it to any hon. Gentleman who wishes to see it. It is as follows:—
  "Since the year 1843 all the timber required by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has been bought through my firm, and the commission paid to us for purchasing this timber has always been 1 per cent. …."
  and, mark you, this is a much smaller business, probably not exceeding fifty or one hundred thousand pounds worth of timber in the year.
  "which we have considered quite adequate, as it is the customary rate of brokerage in the timber trade."
  Yet we are offered a modification, and just picture the position. Here you have a
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  great Government Department practically on their knees asking this timber buyer to reduce his commission. I think this House has the right to demand the immediate rescission of this contract, and also for an inquiry to find out who is the really responsible person for having made this extraordinary and preposterous appointment. To talk about the timber trade holding up the Government, why it seems that this timber buying agent is attempting to hold up the War Office and the Office of Works. I am determined, succeed in that as he may, that at any rate as far as I am concerned, and I feel sure others will be with me, he shall not succeed in holding up the House of Commons. I think the opinion of the House of Commons will be found to be that this timber buying arrangement must be dissolved and terminated forthwith, and that the business should be thrown open under proper supervision and with businesslike methods to the whole market, so that every respectable firm and member of the trade, without fear or favour to any one—and Mr. Meyer will have his chance along with the rest—should have a fair share and a fair chance in open competition of securing some share of the nation's business. I demand further, and I believe I shall have the House with me in this, that the War Office be relieved from an arrangement which everyone knows and everyone feels ought never to have been entered upon, and an arrangement, as I have already stated, which is clearly and admittedly contrary to public interest.
  The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Harold Baker): The question of responsibility as between Government Departments is, I think the House will agree, relatively unimportant in this matter.
  Mr. BOOTH: No, no.
  Mr. BAKER: As the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Young) who has just spoken has thrown some doubt on the subject, I think it might be convenient if at this stage I restate the position with regard to that responsibility. The War Office as a Department came into this transaction at the beginning of it and again at the end. As I informed the House the other day when this matter was under discussion they came into it at the beginning in this sense. Having asked the Office of Works for advice, and having received from the Office of Works the suggestion that they should be relieved of the task of timber buying,

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  they accepted it, and the whole subsequent arrangements were made and carried out by the Office of Works. The War Office come into the arrangement again at the end, in that they have received the timber, and on that I can only say that the timber has been delivered quickly and of good quality, and that the War Office has no objection of any kind to find with the way in which the contracts have been exercised. My hon. Friend appeared to me to betray a very evident disappointment that he was not able to fasten the whole of his strictures upon the War Office. As between the two Offices the matter is relatively unimportant, but if he asks who is ultimately responsible I quite agree that the War-Office, having agreed with the Office of Works, may be considered ultimately responsible, but it is a responsibility which they cheerfully accept.
  Mr. BOOTH: Is that all the answer?
  Mr. J. HOPE: I think in times of this kind it must needs be that mistakes will arise, but no one I think will visit the representatives of the War Office personally with blame for those mistakes. All we say is that when mistakes arise it is our duty to brand them and notify them to the public, and to take such measures, as far as we can, to see that they shall not arise again. As far as Mr. Meyer is concerned, I dismiss him personally from the case altogether. I know nothing about him. I have nothing against him, and if his name were John Bull I would say neither more nor less. However, a very bad mistake has been made, and the House of Commons must record, informally it may be, its sense that a very bad mistake has been made. It is really only doing its duty by the War Office to let them know what is thought of occurrences of this kind. Personally I must say I think that the whole system of buying on commission is a bad one. Any system which allows it to be to the buyer's interest to make the highest prices, however unconsciously it may work with him, necessarily must be a bad system. But I suppose, such a system is common, from what we have heard, in the timber trade, and occasionally prevails in other Departments of Government buying. But, even if we grant that circumstances may admit of Government Departments buying on commission, surely to allow the buyer to buy on a commission two and a-half times as large as is the custom of the
  496
  trade, and without any maximum, must be altogether wrong. Here you have on present transactions a lump sum of £15,000 gone into the buyer's pocket, besides whatever profit he may have made on his own timber, as I understand. It is clearly contemplated, by the terms of the proposed new arrangement, that at least another £400,000 worth will be bought. That brings the commission up to £23,000. Then there is an indefinite amount over, at a rather lower commission, it is true, but I do not think I shall be a very rash prophet if I say that at least £1,500,000 worth will be bought, which will bring the commission up to £30,500. That is three times the Lord Chancellor's salary for one year.
  Mr. BOOTH: And six times the Prime Minister's salary.
  Mr. J. HOPE: If when a new arrangement is to be made a maximum amount is not fixed, it seems to me inexcusable carelessness on the part of the Department concerned. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Beck) had a very ungrateful task in having to reply for a Department whose delinquencies were some months old when he had only been in office two or three days, and I was extremely sorry for him. He said that this arrangement was necessary in order to break a ring. I think he said there was a ring of 500. But the number was afterwards reduced to 200, so presumably there must have been a large number outside who might have been called in to do the business. But is it seriously suggested that a Government Department had no other resort in order to break this ring than to employ a buyer on these extraordinary terms? In November last, the Government passed one of their lightning Acts, in reference to the withholding of supplies. I know that it was intended to be used in respect of timber just as in respect of other articles, because complaint was made that certain buyers at East Coast ports were holding up Norwegian timber that was wanted for ordinary building purposes, and the Board of Trade acted in the matter. With those powers to come down upon anybody who was withholding supplies, I submit that the Office of Works had a weapon in their hands with which they could have broken down any possible ring. Even if they had not had that weapon, in the general state of public opinion, they had only to threaten to hold up the offenders to public execration, and no

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  ring could have stood against them. Therefore the argument that this arrangement was necessary in order to break the ring will not hold water for a moment. I think hon. Members opposite have made out an overwhelming case. I do not wish to attack hon. Gentlemen who represents the Departments concerned in this matter, but I do say that this matter has been a real bad scandal, and that if it is allowed to pass there will be similar scandals in other Departments. I submit that this preposterous contract should be broken immediately, that a maximum salary should be given, whether to Mr. Meyer or anyone else, and that this system of indefinite liability should be put an end to at once.
  Sir HENRY DALZIEL: I think we have some reason to complain of the arrangement of this Debate so far as the Government Bench is concerned. It is usual, especially on the Motion for Adjournment, when an attack is made upon a particular Department, that the Minister concerned should at once reply to the criticisms that are made. If that reply is satisfactory, the time of the House may be saved and the House adjourn. Had the Financial Secretary to the War Office, who I think treated the House with rather scant courtesy, had anything to say that would have thrown any light whatever upon the Subject before us, his intervention would have been excusable. As it was, he might just as well have remained upon his seat. My hon. Friend (Mr. W. Young) started by making an apology for introducing this matter again. I make no apology, and I am surprised that my hon. Friend did, because if he had not pursued the matter from the point where it was left on the previous occasion, I think he would have been failing in his public duty.
  It is desirable that this question should be cleared up, so that we know exactly where we stand, and whether the Government have got the excellent case which they say they have in connection with what has been described as a "splendid business arrangement." I have in mind the fact that this is not the only question to which Gentlemen on the Government Bench will have to reply, in regard to which the complaints are somewhat similar, but perhaps more important than in the case which we are now discussing. I associate myself with my hon. Friend in saying that there is no suggestion of any personal attack upon the gentleman principally concerned—Mr. Montague Meyer.
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  All I can say is that I admire Mr. Meyer's business capacity, and only wish there was a little more of it on the Treasury Bench. It is not Mr. Meyer whom we complain about in this matter. I take my hat off to Mr. Meyer as a very smart man. He does not go to the City for the benefit of his health, and if he was able to make a profitable contract with the Government he was certainly not to be blamed. He was there as a business man, not as a patriot, although I have no doubt his patriotism is as strong as that of other people.
  Instead of troubling to quote, Mr. Meyer took a cab from the City to the Office of Works, and offered to undertake the responsibility of buying for the War Office. This is after the War Office had decided that the Office of Works were the people who ought to handle the job. Probably Mr. Meyer said, "Gentlemen, you know nothing about this business. There are an awful lot of swindlers in the timber trade who will run the prices up yet higher. Employ me as your buyer, and I will take the responsibility off you." The Office of Works, who were to be the purchasing authority in the eye of the War Office, immediately handed on to Mr. Meyer the responsibility which the War Office had abrogated. That is exactly what happened. Mr. Meyer then went back to the City, and no doubt said to his partner, "This has been rather a lucky day. I have got in my pocket a contract worth at least £50,000, and with ordinary luck it ought to be worth a good deal more." This is a question of criticism, particularly of the Office of Works, and indirectly of the War Office. What are our points of criticism? "We say, in the first place, that the commission is altogether too high. There is no precedent in the business for 2½ per cent. to an unlimited amount. My hon. Friend quoted a public body, and doubtless many more could be quoted, showing that 1 per cent. is accepted in the trade as the ordinary commission for such purchasing.
  Probably my hon. Friend who represents the Office of Works, will ask us to look at the number of things that Mr. Meyer has to do. But we have to deal with the contract, not with the generosity of Mr. Meyer. What Mr. Meyer has to do under the contract is very small beer indeed. He has to do the checking, and to arrange for the timber being moved about; but when the hon. Gentleman tries to make out a case in which enormous expenditure is involved, I say that no such case can

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  be made out from the contract, and it is the contract that we, as business men, must consider. Outside the buying there is the checking to be provided for, but two clerks are provided by the Office of Works to assist Mr. Meyer; and I say that outside that, the extra work will not represent a half per cent. or a quarter per cent. increase. If that is the case which the hon. Member is going to try to make, I think it is rather ingenious, but it cannot be made from the contract of Mr. Meyer, who may have undertaken voluntarily additional work which he was not required to do. That is, of course, another matter, and one which does not affect in any way our criticism of the contract. We say, further, that insufficient inquiry was made before Mr. Meyer was appointed. Three or four days only elapsed between the time Mr. Meyer called at the Office of Works and the day on which he received the letter confirming the appointment. The night of the very day he had that interview—for we have no record of any other—with Mr. Baines at the Office of Works he wrote a letter, in which he stated, and practically assumed, that he had been appointed after the interview. When we are talking about commission, it is rather interesting to note that Mr. Meyer is a man of rather large ideas. This may be useful in the buying of timber, but Mr. Meyer's large ideas hinge upon the possibilities of the future. I observe, that Mr. Meyer says in the letter to which I have referred, and which is the basis of the contract:—
  "It is not a question of the Commission we shall make out of this transaction, but we hope later on that the Government will be able to make us their official purchasers for all timber required on Government Contracts for railways and for any undertaking for which they may require wood. Firms with whom you place your building contracts would have their timber at a very considerable reduction from the price we have to pay now."
  Mr. Meyer is going to step in as soon as he is done with the Office of Works and deal with the contractors, who, at the present time, buy their own timber! I do not know what the contractors will say to that. He goes on to say that the timber
  "can be purchased much cheaper than now. The size of the purchases which we should be enabled to make would be so vast that the prices we should obtain for you would be lower than those obtained by any other firm in existence …."
  This is a firm which, after all, has only had a few years' existence!
  "The proposition we put before you is bound to be right for you. If we give satisfaction …. we hope to get the whole of the Government's work in the future."
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  We must regard the commission in this case, although Mr. Meyer treats it as not an important matter; it is the future he has in view. I repeat there was insufficient inquiry made before Mr. Meyer was appointed. Why do I say that? My hon. Friend who represents the Board of Works said the other day, in answer to me at Question Time—where we have little opportunity of putting our case:—
  "Oh no, that is not so; 500 inquiries were made."
  He has since admitted that he was wrong. He has admitted to 200.
  Mr. BECK: Two hundred!
  Sir H. DALZIEL: That means probably that each one was asked four times over the telephone.
  Mr. BECK: No, no, it need not be stated wrongly. There were a thousand inquiries made to quote prices.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: How can you say a thousand inquiries from 200 firms?
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Not from a thousand people?
  Mr. BECK: I never said 500.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Will all respect, the answer given as to the inquiries made have tended to mislead us. That is the result, whether it was intended or not. This is the point: How many firms were you dealing with? Where did the hon. Gentleman get these 200 from? He did not get them at the Office of Works, because they have not, as I shall show presently from their own documents, got these; they are not in the habit of buying timber. The contractors are in the habit of buying their own timber. He did not get the War Office list, which I imagine would have been a correct list to take. Some of the largest firms are nearly every day doing contract work for the Government. Why did he not take that? Some of the leading firms in London are on the War Office list, and they are discharging the work to the satisfaction of the War Office. They were never asked to quote! I think that wants looking into. Why were not they asked to quote when Mr. Meyer was asked to quote—and when the directories were being searched for these 200 firms?
  I would like light upon that point, because it suggests that the thing was not thrown open to competition, as I think it, ought to have been. We further complain

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  there is no limit in the contract to the commission that Mr. Meyer can pay to a third party. We assume that all discounts that Mr. Meyer gets are handed over to the Government, but there is no provision whatever in the contract to prevent Mr. Meyer paying, say, 2 per cent. or any per cent. that he likes to a third party, a broker or anybody else in connection with it. That is a very serious matter. It practically means that Mr. Meyer has power to gamble with the money of the State. The only check is when your invoice comes in later after the transaction has been concluded, and in that way you can get probably a limitation. Mark you, I am not dealing with a personality in this matter. We have got to deal with the contract as it is, not what you think is intended, or what might be intended, or the result of it; you have to take the letters forming the contract, and they are the only two things we have to consider. I would like a little more information about this. There is no limit to the amount of interest the State may pay on Mr. Meyer's overdraft. It is an express understanding between Mr. Meyer and the Office of Works that they are going to pay the bank rate for any monies advanced. There ought to have been a limit.
  There is also the question of insurance. There is no express provision as to the insurance of this enormous amount of timber. Surely, in making a contract with a man and in handing over the whole responsibility of this matter, when there was very little time to make further inquiries, it ought to have been provided who was to pay the insurance, either the Office of Works or Mr. Meyer, and it ought, further, to have been added what the rate should be, and where it should be transacted. That seems to me to be an ordinary thing. Two people making a deal of this kind would have provided for it in the contract. Mr. Meyer is therefore free to carry out transactions so far as insurance is concerned without any real control whatever. I say that is placing power in Mr. Meyer's hands which he or any man in the position ought not to possess. We heard something the other day from my hon. Friend who represents the Office of Works. I observe from the papers that he got well sustained cheers for his remarks. I saw, too, that the Under-Secretaries applauded it as a brilliant performance.
  Mr. BOOTH: That is those who expect titles!
  Sir H. DALZIEL: My hon. Friend made the point that Mr. Meyer's stock was taken over by the Government at a price, which lost Mr. Meyer £2,000. This was put forward as a splendid exhibition of the business ability of the Office of Works.
  Mr. BOOTH: Fudge to that.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: There are two remarks that can be made upon that. Will the House believe that in a matter of this kind, taking over £11,000 worth of Mr. Meyer's stock, there is absolutely no mention whatever of it in the contract? It is not alluded to. Therefore, if Mr. Meyer has handed over at the invoice price at which he bought it, he is doing something outside his contract. But I should like to know exactly the date when it was decided that Mr. Meyer's stock should be taken over, and when he, as Mr. Meyer for the Office of Works, should pay himself 2½ per cent. for buying from Mr. Meyer in the City, because if, as the hon. Gentleman rather suggested, it was made originally, then it ought to have been in the contract, and if at the time it was made Mr. Meyer consented to hand over his stock at that time at 2½ per cent., although we were told it had gone up in value, do you imagine Mr. Meyer gave up £2,000 without getting something for it? Of course, that was the sprat thrown to catch the whale. Mr. Meyer might well offer to give £2,000 if sure of making £15,000 for the first three months, and it was no doubt that generosity of Mr. Meyer which impressed Mr. Baines at the Office of Works.
  Therefore, I say we want a little more light on that point, especially light as to why it was not in the contract. We say, further, that the Office of Works was not the Department to which this responsibility ought to be handed over. They ought to have had a buying commission to advise them of the best business men in the trade. You need not have taken their advice. They have letters from some of the biggest firms in London offering their services in any way possible to assist the Government in the present crisis. You must not imagine Mr. Meyer is the only person in London who can buy wood through brokers without their knowing it is being bought for the Government. Men who have been in the trade longer than he has can carry out that transaction just as well. In that way a considerable amount of money, there is reason to believe, might have been saved. The Office of Works themselves admit, in a letter which they wrote a few

  503
  months ago, that they are really not buyers of timber. This is an extract from a letter they sent some time back in reply to a person offering to do business:—
  "The supplies of sawn timber required in connection with the Departments having contracts were purchased by the contractors for the respective works, and not direct by the Board."
  That is their own letter from the Office of Works, and then the Under-Secretary tells us the Office of Works is the best Department to do this work, though they they admit in their own letter that they are not buyers of sawn timber, so that I cannot see how they can reconcile those two points of view. I say they have no list of contractors. Will they tell us exactly how this list was formed, and where it was taken from? We further say that we want a little information on a great point that was made on behalf of what was called Mr. Montague Meyer's trial transaction. I am interested to know whether it was before the letter or the interview in which his appointment was practically made, or whether it was subsequent to that date. Of course, when told to go out and make a trial order, it may pay you very well to lose on the transaction. If I am sent by the War Office to buy twenty horses, and an appointment of great value depends on the results of that purchase, do you suppose I am going to charge the War Office full price for the first twenty? Nothing of the kind. I should probably let them have them at half price to get the appointment later. I have no doubt whatever that that principle was in the mind of Mr. Meyer.
  I hope the hon. Member representing the Office of Works will answer this question. In the figures he gave the other day as to the difference in the quotation in Mr. Meyer's trial purchase, were landing charges, freight, and any other expenses, free of delivery to the Government in the quotation he made? I should like to put one or two definite questions, to which I hope the hon. Member will reply. Lord Emmott was primarly responsible for the Office of Works, and, consequently, for this Department. Was he consulted at all in regard to the matter? We see it will go into millions. Surely it was a matter on which the President should be asked his opinion. What officers outside Mr. Haines were consulted in regard to the contract, and were they consulted before the letter was sent? I want to know, further, whether the solicitor to the Office of Works was consulted in the drafting of
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  the contract. I think a more loose contract I have seldom seen—I am not speak-of a Government Department but of the smallest business concern—a loose and entirely indefensible contract. The whole obligations are on the side of the Government. Even obligations not asked for by Mr. Meyer are thrown at him, one after another, to make it easier. Therefore, I think it would be a good thing, in any case, where all these big amounts of money are concerned, that the solicitor should pass the contract that is to be made. The point has been made as to a ring squeezing the Government. It is a very pretty phrase, but there is absolutely no tittle of evidence up to this moment, and I say it is a libel on a number of men who are straightforward, honest, and anxious to carry business through properly. As long as you do not ask a man, or give him an opportunity of quoting what you are asking, you have no right to say there is squeezing unless you give definite evidence of it. I hope: my hon. Friend will be able to give some information on the points I have raised.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: In the first place, I am sure I am voicing the views of many Members in expressing our feelings for our hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Beck) in the unfortunate position in which he is placed. He came into this office with the support of both sides, but, under the party system of Government, he is unfortunately bound to defend any contract, however undesirable, which is made by his Department. In this particular case is the contract in such a form that it can be said by any business man to be a business transaction which the Office of Works ought to have prevented? I have had an opportunity of seeing this contract, and a more unbusinesslike contract I have never seen in the whole course of my experience. What is the form of contract, and how did it come to be entered into? In the first place, I may say I do not know Mr. Meyer and never heard of him prior to this transaction. I understand he is a German-Hebrew who comes from the City, who has for some time in recent years been engaged in the timber business. He, with other persons, receives inquiries for the Government supply of timber. He goes down to the Office of Works, and I want the House to note that within a few hours after that time he receives from the Government an order to buy all the timber that they require, at a price which is at least 100 to

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  150 per cent. higher than is paid in the trade for the buying of timber. I buy something like 100,000 tons of timber a year, and this gives me some knowledge of timber buying. I pay about £500 a year for buying timber, but the buying of it for the War Office seems to be a proceeding so simple for any straightforward business house to carry out that if the Board of Works had gone to any old-established firm and said, "We are at a time of great national danger when everybody ought to help the State, and we want you to undertake this work of buying timber for us because we think if it were kept secret that you were buying timber for us you might buy on better terms," they would have done so. After Mr. Meyer got the contract it became known that he was the buyer on behalf of the Government, and what happened? In the first place he holds the benefit of this agreement, and how was it granted?
  10.0P.M.
  There were many old-established firms in the City who were never asked to quote. Why should you have given to Mr. Meyer the right to buy timber at this exorbitant rate without asking other people what they were prepared to do it for? When you are dealing with an expenditure of £20,000 or £30,000 the least the Government or any business man should have done would have been to inquire what other people would do the work for. Is Mr. Meyer the only person who can buy timber on behalf of the Government, and, if not, why were not other inquiries made? If you had gone to an old-established house and said, "We want to buy timber and we think it is going to be an advantage to the Government for you to do it for us," I undertake to say that they would have bought the timber without charging the Government a single penny. Many men have given up their time and labour to the State during the last six months without any payment whatsoever, and there are numerous firms who would have been glad, if not for nothing, to have done this work for a couple of thousand pounds per annum. What was Mr. Meyer making out of his own business prior to this undertaking? Was he making anything like the profit he is going to make out of this one transaction? The contract provides that all other charges shall be paid to Mr. Meyer. What does that mean? Is Mr. Meyer entitled to give any commission he likes to any buyer in Norway and Sweden and charge this against the Government? The whole contract is drawn in the most loose manner. As far
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  as I can gather, Mr. Meyer can make any charge he likes and put it on the Government to pay. My hon. Friend gave the figure of the prices received for timber and at which Mr. Meyer was able to buy. I would like to know if the figures he gave were for prices delivered in London or England, or were they pi ices at which Mr. Meyer bought abroad? I understand that the Government had quotations from 200 firms, but by some unfortunate occurrence some of the leading firms were not asked to quote. When these inquiries were sent out prices were received. Is the House to understand that the price at which Mr. Meyer has been able to buy is £2 per standard lower than any quotations the Government had received? If that is so, then possibly the Government have a good answer to make. At the same time they would have no answer to the charge that they are paying Mr. Meyer 100 per cent. higher commission than is usually paid by the trade. The whole of the contract is not in a business form at all. With regard to the inquiries which were made, it is very strange that so many inquiries were sent out and the contractors on the Government list were omitted. Who prepared this list? I have had some experience of the Board of Works in years gone by, and I have always been of opinion that it is the worst and the most unbusinesslike Department of all the badly-managed Departments of the State. We are entitled to know where this list came from and who supplied it to the Board of Works, and why the regular Government contractors were not consulted.
  Mr. BOOTH: I do not know whether my hon. Friend wishes to reply at this time, but I do not want it thought that I am afraid to make my remarks before he speaks. I am not quite sure in the stress of business how far his junior reported to the Prime Minister. Without any disrespect to my three juvenile friends on the Front Bench, I may say that I am disappointed that the arrangements made for this Debate do not correspond either with the Prime Minister's answer to my question or the importance of the subject. I am not now prepared to express myself in the way I intend to do, before this matter is finally disposed of, in the face of a Front Bench of this description. The Prime Minister indicated to me two definite occasions upon which this question could be raised. I may say quite frankly that we do not go into a disagreeable

  507
  subject like this to be fogged off on a foggy evening of this description.
  We are entitled to introduce the matter when we can move a reduction of some important vote. Then when the Front Bench is threatened with a division they will see that one Minister comes in in order to ascertain why the bells are ringing. I say that advisedly, because when the subject was last under discussion an intimation was given which misled the House. The answer was given that 500 inquiries of firms had been made, and I say the only interpretation a business man could put upon that was that 500 firms had been approached, but now we understand that only 200 firms were approached and 1,000 inquiries were made. The inquiries have doubled, but the number of firms have been reduced to 40 per cent. When answers of that kind are given, the hon. Gentlemen on that Front Bench must forgive us—they must not take it that there is anything personally against them; they are more or less the tools or instruments of people we cannot get at—if we say that they give answers which do not inspire confidence. I drew the Prime Minister's attention to the fact, and I did it deliberately. I assert again that when we are treated to answers of that description they do not carry conviction, and, when they are denied the following morning by newspapers which are usually supposed to be friendly to the Government, and which have a reputation quite as good as any junior Minister, I say that we are made very uneasy.
  I quite understand the position of the Opposition. There is not the smallest doubt that in normal times Members of the Opposition would have pressed this matter, and that is all the more reason why it is our duty to do it now. I know that the hon. Member for Sheffield felt that. Since the War began there has not been the slightest trace of any attempt on the part of any Member of the Opposition, either on the Front or Back Bench, to snatch the slightest party advantage, and it is exceedingly difficult for them to press a point like this. It is all the more important, as the Opposition cannot do it, that we should do our duty. What does it mean? It means that one of the most terrible scandals that has ever occurred in the history of the Government is being investigated by this House. There has been nothing
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  since I have been a Member of this House which has staggered me like this transaction. I do not hope to carry with me the 62 and two-thirds per cent. of the Government that I see on the Front Bench, but I do hope to carry the 33 and one-third per cent., when I say that the ordinary business proceeding, if you had a large purchase of this character to make, would have been to endeavour to get a suitable man and make a definite bargain with him, or, if you could get, as you can in this time of crisis, the very best men in the country offering their time and talent freely to the Government, to take advantage of that.
  What does one hear every day? Junior Members of the Government may not hear it, but what does ordinary Members of the House hear almost every day? One hears that persons who are too old to go to the War, or are not suitable, are going to the War Office and to various Departments of the Government and saying, "What can I do? I have such and such experience"—giving particulars. "Make use of me, without salary, or without expenses if you like. I will do anything to help my country in this crisis." Strange enough, the Government have to admit that was so in this particular question of timber buying. That has nothing to do with permanent officials who have some other scheme or with junior Ministers who have never been in business in their lives, but it is a natural thing to some of us who know what business is. They sent out some inquiries, and one of the smartest of men turns up and says, "You do not want to do it in this way." The first endeavour of the very smart man when he finds he can only make a profit with risks is to remove that element of all business risk, and, when he finds he is subject to severe competition, his first aim is to remove all competition. So Mr. Montague Meyer, a giant among pygmies, comes along, and says, "You do not want to do it this way. I am the man. Do not deal with any of the other people. Deal with me only. Deal with me in such a way that I do not run any risk whatever and that I cannot lose a penny, but that provided your orders are big enough I make my pile whether the War is over by Easter or not."
  I know nothing whatever against this person. I know nothing either of his politics or of his religion. I turn up the list of my club, the National Liberal Club, and I am mightily relieved to find

  509
  that he is not a member. If he is not a member of the National Liberal Club, I suppose he may belong to the Conservative Club, but I do not know whether that is so or not. I have been unable to find anything whatever about him. I do know, however, that while my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden, who has, to my great delight, as he knows, been taken into the Government, receives a matter of about £1,000 a year, which is certainly an increase on his £400 as an ordinary Member, Mr. Montague Meyer, about whom I know nothing, asks us to believe that he is worth thirty, or probably sixty, times as much. He is open to make, I understand, about £30,000 in six months, and the hon. Member can only earn £1,000 in twelve months. I refuse to believe that this gentleman is worth sixty times as much as my hon. Friend. Nothing will induce me to accept that. We must ask this: How is it that a stranger of this description can walk into this beautiful job? That is what everybody is asking. My hon. Friends on that Bench may think the question is something else, but if they will venture to go out and meet people who do not know that they are Ministers, they will find that in the smoke-rooms and in the circles where business men meet the one question asked by everybody is: What is the meaning of this? Who is responsible for this job? I have spoken to Conservatives, I have spoken to Liberals, and I have spoken to leading trade unionists, and they cannot get it out of their heads—I am hoping that an answer will be given which will get it out of their heads—that there has been some corruption. I cannot credit it. I do not believe it, and until it is actually proved, or we can actually find it, I will not credit such an idea as that, but it is the common view, and it can only have arisen from the fact that they cannot see any ordinary business explanation of this transaction.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: They do not know how stupid the Government are.
  Mr. BOOTH: Looking at it in the ordinary way they say that is their own construction, and, whether the Government realise it or not, that at the present time is the view which prevails and which is spreading. I hope that they will be able to remove it. I honestly and quite sincerely say that at the present time I do not think that there is any corruption about it. I think that it is slovenliness, inexperience
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  and perhaps haste, but I want my non. Friends to understand that a contract like this is a kind of thing for which any board of directors, any managing director or any secretary of a company would be sacked. It may be that in politics we have to take this kind of thing. I do not know. I only say that this is one of those things I cannot overlook. I am prepared to think that in high politics and matters of policy I may be mistaken. But this is just one of those things which party loyalty cannot possibly expect us to support. It has not strength enough. Even the attachment to one's own party and one's own leaders—even party bonds and fetters are not strong enough to make men who have to earn their living in business agree to be parties to a thing of this kind.
  If there is no other way to prevent these things I am going to advocate a Coalition Government. I am going to say quite frankly to my own party that if there is no other way to avoid things of things character, let us have a Coalition Government composed of Liberals, Conservatives, and Labour men. That is the solution we must have. The effect of this goes far beyond what hon. Gentlemen think. It is leading working men to go out on strike; it is leading to a jealous feelings against our Friends of the Labour party who are moderately inclined; it increases the difficulty of their heavy task in counselling moderation and peace. When the working classes have to pay increased prices for food and see their own firm making large profits, they get restless when they hear of huge profits of this description being made on a commission basis. They are becoming more and more restless, and I venture to prophesy that we shall have increased trouble. There are already manifestations of a spirit which does not bode well for the industry of this country in some, at any rate, of its departments. It is things like this which have been published which make it hard to represent to the working classes that they should stick to their jobs on comparatively small wages and help the country through this time of difficulty. But how can you expect men, when prices of food are going up, to be content when they hear that Mr. Montague Meyer is making thousands upon thousands of pounds by the mere purchase of timber? You cannot really expect it. I intervened at this stage in order that my hon. Friend, in his answer, may realise that it is not sufficient to make an ordinary,

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  clever or debating speech in reply to a thing like this. It is really far-reaching. It goes to the root of the matter of the whole conduct of the nation's affairs in this time of crisis, and the whole principles of the employment of labour in this country.
  Mr. BECK: I must particularly claim the indulgence of the House, standing here for the first time, on a not very easy occasion, and I think the indulgence thus requested is oven more desirable when claimed by one who has been some years in the House and who knows the high standard exacted of men here. My hon. Friend who has just sat down is a little difficult to please, because he made the point that no interest was taken in this Debate.
  Mr. BOOTH: I did not make that point.
  Mr. BECK: The hon. Member said that there was nobody here this evening.
  Mr. BOOTH: Nothing of the kind. I only mentioned a casual remark in the Lobby. I certainly think that the attendance here is not characteristic of the opinion of the House. I know scores upon scores of Members thoroughly loyal to the Government who are bitterly disappointed. I never suggested that the attendance was any reflex of the dissatisfaction of the House.
  Mr. BECK: I am sorry I misunderstood my hon. Friend, but that was the impression he conveyed to me. Really ten minutes past ten on Thursday evening is not an impossible hour for Members interested to attend the House and take part in the Debate if they so desire. But, after all, these are very small points, as is the one respecting the amount of remuneration and suggesting that I am only a sixtieth part of Mr. Meyer. What is much more surprising to me is that I find myself nearly three times as great as the hon. Member for Pontefract, if salary is to be the basis of comparison.
  Mr. BOOTH: In what way?
  Mr. BECK: My hon. Friend earns £400 a year, and earn £1,000.
  Mr. BOOTH: I pay Income Tax on more than £1,000.
  Mr. BECK: Really, these things are trivial. If we are going to approach this thing from the business point of view I
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  would submit it is absurd to compare the payment made to Mr. Meyer for his services with the salary which is paid officially to the Prime Minister, or to yourself, Mr. Speaker, or to any of the other great figures in our national life.
  Mr. W. YOUNG: Certainly not.
  Mr. BOOTH: Why?
  Mr. BECK: I will, if I may, come to the case I have to make. I would say, first of all, that, as I understand it, no one—certainly no one I have spoken to, has the least objection to this case being raised. I am authorised on behalf of my Noble Friend, the First Commissioner of Works, to say that if any business man in this House likes to go over to the Office of Works, every detail of this transaction is open to his inspection.
  Mr. BOOTH: I will go.
  Mr. BECK: Really, I think my hon. Friend might allow me to make my speech in my own way. The name of every firm who has tendered to us is there. The profits of Mr. Meyer's business in the past, as testified to by chartered accountants, are there—of course, only for the private information of Members and not for the use of his trade rivals. There is nothing any Member can request us to show at the Office of Works which is not open to his inspection to show that there is nothing the least suspicious or doubtful in this case. That offer my Noble Friend allows me to make, and I can also say that he and the whole Board has full knowledge of this case, and take full responsibility for it.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: Before it was concluded?
  Mr. BECK: It is not concluded at this moment. I only wish to say, as regards my own humble part in it, that I have given the best of my mind to trying to understand it, and I really do think that my hon. Friends who have been, as I say, rather misled in this matter will be disappointed if they expect to find what my hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Booth) called a "terrible scandal." I am afraid I shall be rather long. I am very sorry, that I have to be, but after all the matter has been swelled up somewhat beyond its value, and the figures are large even in these times of colossal expenditure. May I come to the case? The interest of my hon. Friend the Member for East Perthshire (Mr. William Young) in these

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  matters is, I am sure, praiseworthy. I believe it is the duty of every Member of this House to take the keenest interest in any matter of this sort, and therefore it is desirable that all these things should be investigated. I was rather sorry that to-night the hon. Member somewhat slightly altered the tone of his speech from that of the other night—not seriously. He called Mr. Meyer a second or third-rate timber merchant, and talked of officials as playing ducks and drakes with the nation's money I really do not think that that is the sort of thing that helps us. What I think should be kept in mind is that at the time this bargain was made a real and very pressing crisis had arisen.
  This was only one of innumerable problems facing the Government in the terrific struggle in which we are engaged. What happened was this. Here was the month of October, and our troops were under canvas It was absolutely necessary that these troops should be hutted. Wood had to be obtained. Hon. Members talk as if the wood was in this country. I can assure them, from the best of my information, that the wood we had in this country was nothing like the quantity required. I am very sorry that I said to the House the other night—the statement was made in a hurry—that 500 inquiries had been made. What happened was this: I was shown an enormously big file of names, and the person who showed me the file informed me that 500 or over inquiries had been made. We had not then carefully investigated into all the facts. The fact is that over 200 firms were approached and over 1,000 quotations were obtained. These quotations are written out, and they can be seen by anyone who takes the trouble to walk round to the Office of Works. I hope that small point will not come up again. I would say this: Neither Mr. Meyer nor the Office of Works have been quite fairly treated—I do not say by hon. Members in this House—but statements have been made and repeated after it has been shown that they have absolutely no foundation. I have a paper here called "Timber." It is a trade paper which has been sent to me, and which deals with the timber trade. It starts by saying that the agitation was started by an important daily newspaper. Then it says:—
  "We hold no brief for Mr. Meyer, but we like to see fair play, and until we know all the factors which led to his appointment and the way he has carried out the work entrusted to him since then, we certainly do not Teel inclined to criticise either the Office of Works or
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  Mr. Meyer, although we do contend that one of the leading Finnish agents could care done the work for a smaller commission, and should, of course, have been able to purchase on at least as low a basis as Mr. Meyer."
  They say, for instance, that particular statements published by that newspaper were bristling with inaccuracies, and also that it had ignored certain official statements. In the same way this paper is not entirely friendly to the transaction. They think it could have been made by employing other buying agencies.
  Mr. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS: Will the hon. Member say whether Mr. Meyer is an advertiser in "Timber"?
  Mr. SPEAKER: I would ask hon. Members to listen to the Debate without interruption.
  Mr. BECK: I do want to approach this merely from the business point of view. In pursuance of that, I would say that as regards the Department which I have the honour to represent, the Office of Works, they only undertook this duty of timber buying because they felt of their own knowledge that the War Office was intolerably overdriven in the great crisis which had arisen, and because they felt, whether rightly or wrongly, that the knowledge which they possessed enabled them to do a real service to the country at this time of great national strain. I can assure hon. Members of this. I have made the fullest inquiries, and whatever faults the Office of Works may have committed, want of zeal has not been one of them. They have worked and overworked themselves to a most astonishing extent to see that this timber was obtained without delay, of suitable qualities and sizes, and, above all, delivered at the camps so that the work might proceed with as great expedition as possible. I am informed that the names of the firms to whom inquiries were directed were taken from the Directory of the Timber Trades Federation. My advisers tell me that they are not conscious of having omitted any important firm. I do not say for a moment that no firms were omitted, but I do say that I have in my possession a long list of firms, in every corner of the Kingdom, who were asked to quote prices and to give an opinion as to the stock which they possessed. The Office of Works formed the judgment that the quantity of timber was somewhat limited, and, above all, that prices were ruling very high. It was then that Mr. Meyer came on the scene with his solution. Of course, in

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  this life, all of us object to the other man being chosen. All of us feel, if we have interests or capabilities, that we have merits which are denied to our less fortunate neighbours.
  Doubtless the timber trade do feel that it is extremely unjust that Mr. Meyer should have been chosen out of so many worthy gentlemen as the official buyer of the War Office. But I would say that I am glad that the very unworthy imputations made against Mr. Meyer because of his name have been dropped. You must remember this—I do not want to rely on the fact, but it is a fact—that at the beginning of this agitation in the newspapers, great play was made with the name of Mr. Meyer, and even the firm with which Mr. Meyer has been employed, the great firm of Bamberger was dragged in. It was stated a few days ago in the "Times" what services Mr. Bamberger and his family were rendering to the country, and the fact was stated that he has already lost a son in this terrible War. I know that my Friends may say that this has nothing to do with the case, but the case grows from day to day. It started with the statement that Mr. Meyer had been only four years in the timber trade. He has been eighteen years. He has been eight years his own master. We were then told that Mr. Meyer was a German. [HON. MEMBERS: "Of German origin."] No, that was not the statement. We have met every point as it arises to the best of our ability, and I hope that after to-night, though the case is badly put, as it is not in very worthy hands, all these wretched little points, which have nothing to do with the matter, will be finally disposed of.
  I say that everything has been done to prejudice this case along the most well-known lines of journalistic and trade jealousy vitriol. The task has been made a great deal more difficult by the prejudice that has been gathered together by means of these methods, and I hope this House, for the dignity of the assembly, will really once for all banish those allegations. Before dealing with my right hon. Friend's points, I would like to say that before finally adopting Mr. Meyer's suggestion, we considered various alternative methods, among them the appointment of a representative committee. But the Board felt, and I must say I agree, that even if it had been an effective proposal, the appointment of members of the
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  committee, the setting up of machinery, and the putting of it into operation, must necessarily have involved delay, and we firmly believed that before the committee could have been formed, the wood would not have been obtained for, at any rate, two or three months. Then there is the further point, which, of course, will arise, namely, the commission which is paid.
  It is not admitted that this is merely a buying transaction; it is essentially one under which arrangements were to be made for the delivery of timber, as well as the buying of it. The transport had to be arranged, and when timber was declared contraband, a new route had to be arranged for conveying the timber, besides giving attention to blockages on the railways, which continually occurred in those days. I am only pointing this out in order to show that it would not have been easy for a committee, representative of the trade, to undertake all these various duties, unless they gave the whole of their time; and it will be seen that a committee is not a likely body to do business quickly or without delay. I think the suggestion that anyone would come forward and offer to do this work without payment, in view of the immense amount of work to be done, is not one worthy the serious consideration of business men. I am perfectly certain that the hon. Baronet, the Member for Mansfield (Sir A. Markham) would never employ a man who came into his office and said he wanted to do work for nothing. A great many of us in this House do a great deal of work for nothing, but we all know that the man who is not paid, or is not paid sufficiently, is not the man from whom you get value. I come to a question which, if I may, I will handle with some discretion. I come to the description of the prices. I do not, and I think the House will agree with me, in the least wish to gibbet great timber firms as having given to the War Office or the Office of Works quotations which were unreasonable or exorbitant, but I have here the names from the Office of Works, with the prices given by the great trade firms. If there is any desire to have them published they can be but I do not think there will be on anybody's part, as it would be grossly unfair, I submit, to do so, as those firms when they sent their tenders did not expect their names published.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Corporations always publish their tenders.
  Mr. BECK: I will give the House some figures which I think will really show that at any rate there is a primâ facie case, on investigation by the most exacting business man, for saying that the Office of Works did save the country, by the employment of the scheme devised by Mr. Meyer and by employing Mr. Meyer himself. These are prices before the contraband of war, and prices which in each case covers the cost of insurance and freight. [An HON. MEMBER: "Are they piece prices?"] They are prices before Germany declared timber contraband of war, and when the timber still came down through the Baltic instead of taking it through the North Sea.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: Were they made before 19th October?
  Mr. BECK: Yes; these were prices quoted. We have not got anything like the information we will have, because there has not been time to prepare it, as the Department is overworked, and some of the transactions are still incomplete. What we have done is to try and get out as far as possible, and on the most equitable lines, absolutely equal cases, so that we can test whether economy has been effected by employing Mr. Meyer and his system. These are the average prices, before timber was declared contraband of war, taken out of particulars given by the great firms. I am assured that in no case are there any tenders anything like as low as Mr. Meyer's, no individual tender, much less the whole transaction. I take 2 by 4, and the average quoted price by the great firms is £13 14s. 6d., the standard and the price actually paid through Mr. Meyer is £11 8s. 6d. In 3 by 9 the average price in the one case was £16 13s., and in the other £12 3s. 4d., and in 3 by 4½ £15 9s. 9d. from the trade, and through Mr. Meyer £11 12s. 6d. The price for roof boarding was £14 2s. 8d., as against £11 16s. 3d.; and for weather boarding £14 10s., as compared with £11 17s. 3d. I could go on with the list—
  Mr. BOOTH: What were the lowest tenders as compared with Mr. Meyer's?
  Mr. BECK: I have not all the figures, but I am giving a perfectly fair statement. If the hon. Member thinks I am deceiving the House, he has only to go to the Office of Works and see the figures they have there. I am trying to state the case perfectly fairly.
  Mr. BOOTH: These figures have no meaning.
  Mr. TYSON WILSON: Are the tenders for the same quality of timber each time?
  Mr. BECK: They are as exactly comparable as they can be made. I come now to 17th November. These are the prices quoted on that date by one of the greatest London timber firms, and the actual prices at which our buyers obtained the; same quality of wood: 100 standards tongued and grooved boards, average quoted price, £14 2s. 6d.; bought by our buyer. £12 7s. 6d. 100 standard weather boards, average quoted price, £14 5s.; bought by our buyer, £12.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: There is no sense in an average quotation. No business man has ever heard of such a thing.
  Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member (Mr. Beck is making his speech; the hon. Baronet has made his; surely he should give an opportunity for a reply. It is really not fair to make these running comments. The hon. Member is a new Minister; therefore he should be treated with the more consideration.
  Mr. BECK: I quite admit that it is a very dull subject, but I am trying to give the House the information which it ought to have. We have tried to test this question in every possible way. If these quotations are objected to. I will only say that they show savings, per hundred standards, of 35s., 45s., 55s., 60s., and so on. Now let us see how the prices we, actually paid Mr. Meyer compare with prices given at public auction in London at the same time. At a public auction, the 23rd January, held by Messrs. Foy, Morgan and Co., at Cannon Street Hotel, the auction price for 3ft. by 4ft. 4½ in was £15 15s., we were buying at £14; 3ft. by 3ft., auction price, £15 10s., we were buying at £12 5s.; 4ft. by 9ft. 10 in., auction price, £16 5s., we were buying at £14 10s. I have another long list which can be seen by any Member who is interested. Now we come to the most remarkable case of all, where we have an offer from a timber firm of some goods "ex ship," and the wood actually came over in the same ship that brought over timber purchased for us by Mr. Meyer, The quality was the same, the timber came from the same place, it was borne in the same ship, and in a transaction amounting to £2,800 in all the saving under Mr. Meyer's scheme was £850.
  Mr. BOOTH: What is the date?
  Mr. BECK: The information is conveyed in a letter to the War Office of 1st February, 1915. The ship sailed from Trondhjem to Hull, I believe, in January. I am not trying to hide anything. I am trying to make out a case to show that really this so-called scandal is not a scandal at all, but a business transaction which reflects great credit upon the Departments concerned. [Laughter.] Well, hon. Members will judge my meaning. I come to another letter to the War Office written, not for this Debate, but in the ordinary course of business:—
  "You may like to add the following item to my letter to you of yesterday's date, where I state that four by two is being quoted at £17 10s., while the Office of Works hold large stocks all over the country at £14 12s. 6d. average. The Office of Works yesterday bought, two by four, unsorted, Canadian spruce at £11 15s. per standard, c.i.f. London."
  This was good quality and good useful timber. The letter is dated 22nd January.
  Mr. YOUNG: Who wrote that letter?
  Mr. BECK: It was written by the Office of Works to the War Office in the ordinary course. It was not Mr. Meyer's letter. Here are two big firms. On 19th October they offered standards 2ft. by 4½ ft. unsorted Reds at £13 5s. ex ship. On 20th October we paid for similar timber of exactly the same description £11 per standard—a total saving of £172 10s. on a transaction of £1,100. Just before the declaration of contraband, on 14th December, another great firm offered standards at £15 10s. per standard. On 16th December Mr. Meyer purchased similar wood at £14 5s. per standard, a saving, after we paid Mr. Meyer's commission, of 2½ per cent., of £271 5s. in a transaction of £3,500. So I could go on, quoting case after case of that sort. I do not want to press any views of mine—they are of no value—nor do I wish to press the views of the Noble Lord the Commissioner. But I do say that before reckless charges are made, and before an outcry is raised in this House, hon. Members might easily have informed themselves of the details of this transaction. I submit to hon. Members that they have been made use of as tools by men who were personally disappointed of great profits.
  Sir H. DALZIEL: I have not received one letter.
  Mr. BOOTH: Nor I!
  Mr. BECK: The charges were made long before hon. Members took them up, and in a way that showed there was not much impartial or judicial spirit about them, but that there was a good deal of active dislike behind it all. Now to come to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Sir H. Dalziel), who says that the commission of 2½ per cent. is too high. We might argue that to Doomsday. All we can say is that, although we admit that the sums earned by Mr. Meyer are large—they are not in any sense represented by £15,000 net profit, as many charges have to be borne out of that amount—we believe that we can show that the sums saved to the country were infinitely larger than anything he earned. Then he said something about Mr. Meyer's duties. We had that out very fully the other night in my hon. Friend's speech. It is all very well to say he performed the ordinary duties; we say he performed extraordinary duties. But I would say there again the case made has been to a very large extent blown away.
  We were told that Mr. Meyer got 2½ per cent., had a staff of clerks, an office, a telephone, and all the rest, provided for him in the Office of Works. All that has disappeared. My hon. Friend did say something about two clerks to assist, but, as will be seen in the contract, they were merely to check particulars in Mr. Meyer's office. Then my hon. Friend said there was insufficient inquiry. Only three or four days elapsed between the first inquiry and the letter written appointing Mr. Meyer. We admit that there was a hurry. As I have said already, and I say it again, there was urgent hurry to have this wood—above all to get it—and we can only say this as regards the Office of Works: That although we started with this one transaction, we had, at any rate, so far satisfied the War Office that we are constantly pressed by them to take more and more of the work—to get the wood they require. There is a reason. As my hon. Friend has generously said to-night, the timber was delivered in the camps punctually to time, and the rejections for defection were well under 1 per cent. of the total timber delivered. We believe, and I think the trade would believe if they knew the facts, that that would be a very difficult record for any committee or anything else to beat.
  As to the 200 firms, the names of these were taken from the Directory pub-

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  lished by the "Timber Trade Federation Journal," and I am informed that there was no consciousness that any firms were left out. If one or two were left out it was an unfortunate accident and I am sorry for it. Again, there was an attempt to get a few quotations from the whole of the timber trade of the Kingdom, to get quotations also from every corner of the Kingdom to see what there was and what would have to be paid for it. As regards the solicitor and so on, after all anyone who has taken the trouble to read the contract—and I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for East Perthshire has apparently not read the contract—I have been walking about with copies of the contract—
  Mr. YOUNG: I have not had one.
  It being Eleven of the clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed without Question put.
  Mr. BECK: I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."
  I have only to say as regards the question of control and solicitors, I have shown that the time was very brief and that there really was no time to indulge in all the technical safeguards which I agree in peaceable times it would be extremely desirable should be observed. I would point out, however, that this letter of the 19th October, written by the Office of Works, is of a very strict character, and that above all it contains the provision that if Mr. Meyer, in our opinion, does anything which is either unbusinesslike or undesirable or exorbitant or anything of that kind, the contract can be cancelled at once at a stroke of the pen by a registered letter or by a letter sent to Mr. Meyer by a messenger. I cannot imagine that any solicitor or any safeguard you could get would give you a greater hold on a man, if a hold is desirable, than this letter gives. I do not know whether I have forgotten anything that has been asked me. Finally, I wish to say that this House does well to be extremely jealous of any contracts that are made by the Government of the day. I believe that, in picking out this contract for criticism and condemnation, hon. Members have picked out a contract which bears scrutiny very well. I say in all seriousness and not in any spirit of undue apology or excuse that, in considering this contract, or the 500 or 1,000 other contracts entered into by the Government, you have to remember the conditions under
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  which they were entered into. As regards the Office of Works, this contrast was entered into purely as a public duty, and there was no need for them to have touched the timber contract at all.
  Everybody must know that when you are going to expand an Army as the War Office has done, the pressure must be terrific on that Department, and the Office of Works, by circumstances, not particularly driven at the time, came forward quite voluntarily and undertook this difficult and, as it turns out, very ungrateful task. I say that the way this contract must be judged is on facts ascertained and proved. You cannot judge it by saying that more time ought to have been taken, or that more committees ought to have been set up. If you had done that the attack would have been on the other flank altogether. You would have Members coining and saying, "This is just like a Government Department. They wait, they set up a committee, and meanwhile people are lying under canvas and in mud, suffering every discomfort, which any ordinary business man would have avoided." We have all heard those sorts of attacks. My hon. Friend behind me has made that kind of attack upon the Government within my knowledge time after time, and often, I dare say, with great justice for all I know; but, at any rate, here was a case where red tape did not bind the authorities, and where great firms were not exclusively employed. Another very favourable method of attack upon Government Departments is to say that they deal only with a few fashionable firms. I do ask the House, in the name of fair play and of justice, to finally sweep away all vestige of prejudice. I hate these prejudices and these sneers which are merely raised where a man has this or that name. The fullest investigations were made, and no charge of any kind has been made against Mr. Meyer's character. He is not an alien in any sense of the word. I ask the House to judge this transaction with an open mind, not blinded by any prejudice of the sort I have endeavoured to describe; and I ask any business man who may be interested in this question to come across to the Office of Works, and himself investigate the facts. I do not pretend to have any great knowledge on this subject; but I believe, if they will do that, the whole of this myth, as I think it is, will be blown away.
  Mr. L. WILLIAMS: I rise, in the first place, to congratulate my hon.

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  Friend on the success of his first appearance at the box. I can assure him that those of us who fought and worked with him when he was on the Back Benches are very delighted at that success, and, if we have interrupted him, it has only been in order to try his mettle and to hear "the young lion roar." I can assure him, also, whatever may be the case outside this House, that, so far as I know, no one has been prejudiced against Mr. Meyer because of his name, and least of all myself, because I notice in the first sentence of the letter which is the basis of the contract, Mr. Meyer says:—
  "With reference to the interview which my partner, Mr. Williams"—
  Therefore, whatever prejudices in other quarters may arise by reason of Mr. Meyer's name, I can assure my hon. Friend that among the Members of the Welsh party the name of Mr. Meyer's partner is sufficient protection for him from any prejudice of that sort. I came here tonight in order to listen to the defence which I knew would be most ably put up by my hon. Friend on behalf of the Office of Works. I have listened to every word of the Debate, and I confess that after the very able speech of my hon. Friend I can only come to the conclusion that he has very successfully imitated the official manner in evading every successive point raised against him. He has spoken of all sorts of matters; he has inundated the House with figures and facts, but neither figure nor fact adduced by him has helped to dispose of the complaint—the reasonable complaint—of my hon. Friend the Member for East Perthshire and my right hon Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy. The first question was this, and until the Office of Works are able to enlighten us on this point the question cannot be disputed: Why should Mr. Meyer, of all the timber merchants in this Kingdom, have been selected to be the monopolist agent of the Government in this most profitable transaction? Who is Mr. Meyer? He has been in business, we are told, for eighteen years, and on his own account for eight years. As far as I have been able to ascertain from my hon. Friend's observations in defence of the Office of Works, Mr. Meyer never had any transaction before this with either the Office of Works or the War Office.
  Mr. BECK: Yes, with the War Office, which actually owed him money at the time.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I hope that was not the reason why he was engaged. At all events, there have been other firms—great firms in London—which have been transacting business with the War Office in the timber line and have never been asked to tender for this. I quite agree there is some force in my hon. Friend's statement that this was a transaction entered into in a hurry, in a time of great national emergency. If it had been one solitary transaction I could have understood why Mr. Meyer, or anybody else, might have been selected to carry it out. But this arrangement, so far as one can gather, is to go on as long as the War lasts. I know there is a clause in the letter of 19th October, in which the Department reserves the right to terminate the arrangements by letter should they consider it desirable, and therefore whatever may be said about the emergency on the 10th October, five months have since elapsed and there has been plenty of time for the Office of Works, if it had chosen, to make arrangements with other firms. At any rate, they could have made inquiries of other firms if they were prepared to quote cheaper terms than Mr. Meyer.
  There is another matter which my hon. Friend very deftly evaded, and that is this. Why should a commission of 2½ per cent. have been offered to this gentleman when, as we are told—I myself know nothing about the timber trade—the ordinary rate of commission is 1 per cent. One of my hon. Friends read a letter from a firm of timber merchants in Liverpool to the effect that since the year 1843 they had been supplying timber and had been perfectly satisfied with a commission of 1 per cent. Why then appoint Mr. Meyer as the sole agent of the Office of Works for buying timber at a commission 150 per cent. higher than this firm which has been doing exactly the same kind of work, was satisfied with? Why not pay the market rate of commission? The very fact that the contract has been altered since by the Office of Works themselves shows that the original amount was much too high. That is a point which has not been definitely and fully answered by my hon. Friend.
  The third point is this: Whatever may have been the urgent causes that led the Office of Works to make this contract with Mr. Meyer in October, surely since then there has been plenty of time to enable them to get into communication with

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  other firms in order to make other arrangements. My hon. Friend suggested in the course of his speech that Mr. Meyer was able to supply timber at a better price than had been quoted by other firms. There are two criticisms to which I would ask him to reply when he comes to deal with the matter further. My hon. Friend is new to the matter and it may very well be that he has not given it so much consideration as he will do in the future. The first point is this: Has he not been misled by this average price which has been quoted? I am not a business man, therefore I should not like to speak with authority or attempt to do so in this matter, but I know something about business transactions, having had to investigate a great number of them. I have never seen or heard before of the average price being contrasted with the price which has been charged for the carrying out of a certain contract. Surely the proper thing would be to contrast the lowest price in each class of goods supplied under the contract with the actual price paid. It is illusory to contrast the price paid with what we call the average price.
  Mr. BECK: This is, I think, the point: When I say we took the average price it was not a question of taking over a few standards of timber at the lowest price. We had to buy timber in every corner of the country. I did quote the actual prices. We lumped together the average price paid all over the country and said we would obtain a quantity of timber at that average price. As a matter of fact, we obtained it at a still lower price under Mr. Meyer's method of obtaining it.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I am not disputing that. The other point the hon. Member did not make clear was this: When he contrasts the price that was actually paid to Mr. Meyer with the price quoted by other firms, I should like to know whether the point at which the goods were to be delivered was the same in each case—that is to say, Mr. Meyer might have delivered the goods for which he was paid in London, while the firms that were quoting these prices might, according to their contract, have to deliver the goods at Birmingham or Coventry, or some other place.
  Mr. BECK: You cannot make those conditions absolutely.
  Mr. WILLIAMS: I would like my hon. Friend to satisfy himself. He says that on another occasion he satisfied himself on this point, and everybody will be glad to accept his assurance, but until he has satisfied himself and told the House, this comparison must be an unfair comparison of prices. I have no prejudice in this matter at all. I have remained in the House, and I have heard the speech of the hon. Member. I congratulate him on the way he has discharged the very onerous duty devolving upon him, but I must say that, after hearing the whole Debate, he has not satisfied my mind that the Office of Works has made a good bargain in this case.
  Mr. HASLAM: I wish, in the first place, to echo the congratulations offered by the hon. Member on the hon. Gentleman's first appearance in the very responsible position in which he is placed on the Front Bench. The hon. Member referred to the nationality of Mr. Meyer. Some Members of this House may have a prejudice against him on account of his name, but, speaking for myself, and I believe I speak for other Members, that there is no prejudice against him on account of his name. And why should we have a prejudice? I wish to emphasise this point. On the matter of nationality the hon. Gentleman was asked the question whether Mr. Meyer was of British nationality, and he replied, "I do not know." I wish to know whether Mr. Meyer is a British subject. So far as I am concerned, as regards the business transaction, I still believe that 2½ per cert, was a large commission to have given, and I believe the same business could have been done, and would have been done, at far less cost to the public purse. On this subject I feel that it is our duty to safeguard, as far as possible, His Majesty's Exchequer, and when questions of public expenditure come before the House Members on the Front Bench will understand that we criticised those matters with the best possible motives and without any personal feeling towards Members on the Front Bench.
  Sir A. MARKHAM: I am sorry I interrupted the hon. Member (Mr. Beck). The reason I did so was that there were certain statements in his speech which seemed to require explanation. It was not done for the purpose of treating him unfairly. He has not dealt with the points raised by an hon. Member in regard to the quotations which he gave. He did not

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  give the dates when they were received by the Government, nor did he tell us whether the prices he gave were for delivery at certain specific towns or whether they were for delivery at Hull or other ports. I am rather suspicious of these prices for the reason that I think the Office of Works has been putting salt on the hon. Member's tail. I have never heard of average prices being quoted in an assembly of business men before. I have never heard of a corporation, contractor, company, or firm, giving out the average prices they have received.
  Mr. BECK: They are proper comparisons.
  Sir A MARKHAM: Where—in Hull?
  Mr. BECK: In different ports. They were absolutely comparable.
  Sir A MARKHAM: The question is whether they were comparable. Rates have varied so enormously between London and Hull owing to the War, that unless we take the actual port where you have got the quotation from one merchant and the price of delivery to Mr. Meyer, the whole comparison is gone. When the Board of Works put into the mouth of my hon. Friend average quotations, they put in something which ought not to have been put in by any Department claiming to have a knowledge of business. Average quotations are utter nonsense, and the Office of Works know it!
  Sir H. DALZIEL: We all recognise that the hon. Gentleman had a very difficult task, and I am sure if it had been possible to make this appear a proper business transaction he would have done it. Unfortunately his eloquence and ability failed, and the opinion of the House remains what it was before the Debate began, that the War Office and the Government have made a great blunder in this matter which ought to be rectified with the least possible delay. It sounds well to talk about crisis and trouble and haste. They have power in this contract to end it in a moment if they please. It has been going on for months. Why did they not say when they had leisure, "This gentleman is making too much money—at the rate of £60,000 a year. The public, who are asked to make
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  all kinds of sacrifices, will resent it. We shall have to modify it at once"? This is a most unbusinesslike contract. There is no business firm in the country that would not be ashamed of the manner with which this contract is drawn. Why were not proper protective clauses for the Government put in? It would have taken only a few minutes' time of a typist. Unlimited power is given to this man to pay away the money of the State. There is no power to prevent him paying commission to any party in the country.
  If you terminate this contract you will have to stand by his commitments. The Government might have come down to the House and pleaded their haste. It is said that the Committee would have been ringed. Are these other Committees ringed? They have some of the best brains in the country advising them. No evidence whatever has been put forward that there was any attempt whatever to ring the War Office. What has been put forward is a selected list of contractors who were invited to compete, but there were many contractors on the list of the War Office itself who were not invited to quote. A selected list was chosen. The result did not come up to the expectations of the Government. This is a most unbusinesslike proposal and cannot be defended. These other firms were neither given an opportunity for quoting prices nor for competing with regard to commission. The commission was settled without even asking what was the rate or without inquiry from any other firm as to what they would take. It was all settled in a quarter of an hour. I should like to see the date of the interview and I shall press for it. Who saw this contract before it was made? Lord Emmott takes responsibility. We pay him for taking the responsibility. I would like Lord Emmott to say that he saw this contract and knew the contents of it before it was made. We shall not let the matter rest where it is.
  It being half-past Eleven of the clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Orders.
  Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock until Monday next, the 1st of March.

WAR.
  BRITISH BROKEN HILL PROPRIE TARY COMPANY.
  BRITISH BROKEN HILL PROPRIE TARY COMPANY.
  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS (INDUS TRIAL CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES).
  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS (INDUS TRIAL CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES).
  ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION (CRYSTAL PALACE).
  ROYAL NAVAL DIVISION (CRYSTAL PALACE).
  BILLETING.
  BILLETING.
  SOLDIERS AND SAILORS (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
  SOLDIERS AND SAILORS (PENSIONS AND ALLOWANCES).
  CHRISTMAS LEAVE.
  CHRISTMAS LEAVE.
  NATIONAL RESERVE.
  NATIONAL RESERVE.
  LODGING ALLOWANCE.
  LODGING ALLOWANCE.
  POTATOES (IMPORTS).
  POTATOES (IMPORTS).
  INVALID MILITARY PRISONERS.
  INVALID MILITARY PRISONERS.
  POST OFFICE SERVICES.
  POST OFFICE SERVICES.
  Export Licences (Irish Shippers).
  Export Licences (Irish Shippers).
  Telegraph Service (Argyllshire).
  Telegraph Service (Argyllshire).